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The 
MEN IVho Found AMERICA 



By 



Frederick Winthrop Hutchinson 



Illustrations in Color by 

E. RoscoE Shrader 

AND 

Herbert Moore 

"Decorations by 

Edwin J. Prittie 




PH ILA DELPHI A 

Edward Stern & Co., Inc. 

1909 



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Copyright, 1909, by Edward Stern & Co., Inc. 



Published, September, 1909 

Press of 
Edward Stern & Co., Inc. 



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AUi12 1909 



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\ THE MEN ff^Ao Found AMERICA 



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"Columbus was dressed in shiiiiii- ^tcil, with a beautiful red cloak, and he 
carried the red and yellow flag of Spain." 



CONTENTS 



A Preface to Parents. 

Page 

Chapter I. The Man Who Found America 13 

Chapter II. The White Tyrant of Darien 26 

Chapter III. The Beautiful City of the Floating 

Islands 37 

Chapter IV. The Swineherd Who Wanted a Castle. 48 

Chapter V. The Noble Who Became a Slave 64 

Chapter VT. How De Soto Came to the Father of 

Waters 77 

Chapter VII. The Boy Who Loved the Sea 90 

Chapter VI II. The Little Red Princess of the Forest. 104 

Chapter IX. The Englishman Who Sailed for the 

Dutch 116 

Chapter X. The Father of New France 127 

Chapter XI. The Friends of the Indians 141 

Chapter XII. What Came of It All 155 

5 



L;V/./ COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS 



Opposite 
Page 



" Columbus was dressed in shining steel, with a beau- 
tiful red cloak, and he carried the red-and-yellow / 
flag of Spain." — Frontispiece. 

" The kind King Montezuma wanted peace, and said that 
he would give the Spaniards more gold if they 
would only go back to their own country" 40 ' 

" If you will let me go free, Pizarro, I will fill up this 

room with gold, and it will all be yours " 56 



" It was Ferdinand de Soto who first found this great 

river, who first came to the Father of Waters"... 88 

" Walter sprang forward and spread his handsome cloak 

on the muddy spot " 96 

" Henry Hudson got many furs from the Indians and 

made them all his friends " 120 

" Champlain came back to the St. Lawrence River and 

began to build a little city called Quebec " 132 

"The Indians loved the brave Father Marquette, and 

called him their friend " 144 



7 



A PREFACE to PARENTS 



HOW quickly the years pass! But yesterday they were 
babies; now he is a great boy, clamoring for trousers 
with vast, mysterious pockets; and she, dear little girl, is a 
mother, caressing her dolls with an infinity of maternal graces. 

Could they but stay young! Were there but a fountain, 
like the one in these stories, to keep them forever safe in a 
mother's arms. It is sad to think of their ever leaving Baby- 
land. 

There is no countrj^ like unto this beautiful bourn of our 
children. Here are the dim, magic forests, the enchanted 
castles, the deep, hidden caves, the secret tree-hollows, where 
dwell sparrows and fairies and lost little children. In this 
land the princess is ever young and ever beautiful; the bold 
Prince Charming slays always the wicked, watchful dragon; 
the fierce Ogre, with his one malevolent eye forever eats the 
tender children at his ravenous evening meal. The land is 
always full, yet always filling; the sun is forever shining, and 
flowers spring up under the patter of little feet. Here bad is 
bad, and good is good, and always the good comes true. For 
is there not a fairy godmother to save the child from all the 
childish evil in the world? 

What a land of adventure it is! What daring deeds! What 
heroic exploits! The little white crib, into which we tuck him 
so tenderly— why, that is no crib at all! It is a great ship, with 
flapping sails unfurled, creaking under stress of storm and sea, 
sailing oceans unknown to lands of which we have never heard. 
It is also a locomotive, a dizzy air-ship, an automobile, and, in 



turn, a fort, a palace, a forest and a wicked robber's cave. 
Resolutely the little captain, aeronaut, king, robber and police- 
man marches through all this brave realm of limitless adventure. 

Only too soon the child must leave this warm, fair land, and, 
losing his baby's heritage, enter upon the schoolboy's estate. 
The wicked giants, the fairy princesses, the wonderful, magic 
animals who talk and think, vanish forever before the spelling- 
book and arithmetic. A little learning is a dangerous thing. 

Soon the little pilgrim must make his exploration of life and 
knowledge. He, too, ' 'must find America." Still, let us not 
tear him from his own charmed domains, nor blow our icy 
breath upon the warm creatures of his quickening imagination. 
Let us rather gently bring oiir world to him, so that, as his eye- 
lids open after his deep child's sleep, he may see this new coun- 
try in his lap, as on the dawn of the Christmas morn he finds 
the gracious gifts of Santa Claus upon the laden, glittering tree. 

Into the wild, romantic life of the nursery I venture to bring 
these twelve tales of twelve great men and brave. They are 
strange stories, and should be welcomed as strangers. And they 
are true — as true as Cinderella, as true as Sinbad, as true as all 
the golden dreams of childhood. 

And it is no wonder; for these stories of exploration are first 
cousins to those your children already know. Aladdin's lamp 
was not more magically pregnant than the Devil's courage of 
the Spaniards in the fairyland of El Dorado; Dick Whittington 
himself was not more marvelously transformed than the swine- 
herd who came to rule a new-found nation ; and bad Bluebeard, 
or even the gaunt wolf, who ate Red Riding Hood's grand- 
mother, was not so fantastically melodramatic as the wicked, 
wicked man who hid in a barrel. 

And so I send these stories to the little children in the hope 
that they may pass from the true tales of fairies to these other 

10 



true tales without shock or rude awakening. May the old, 
beautiful visions linger, and at last fade but gently into the 
wildly unreal truth of the actual world! May the two, the 
tale of the nursery and the tale of the great dominion beyond 
the nursery, live together in friendship and amity, so that, when 
at last the little one comes to lose his fund of baby lore, it will 
pass from him as gently as the fleeing consciousness leaves the 
drowsy child ! 

To the little children of America, and to the children who 
have borne and reared children, to all who must find America, 
these little tales of "The Man Who Found America" and other 
stories are affectionately dedicated. 



11 



THE MAN WHO FOUND AMERICA 






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THE MAN Ifyzo Found AMERICA 

MORE than four hundred years ago, when 
King Ferdinand and the wise, gentle Queen 
Isabella ruled over Spain, there came one day to 
the court, where the King and Queen and all the 
brave nobles and beautiful ladies stayed, a poor 
man named Christopher Columbus. He was 
poor, but he was very wise. He had a great 
plan, a plan to get heaps and heaps of shining 
pearls, and red rubies, and diamonds, and soft 
blue and white and yellow silks, and many other 
wonderful things for Spain and the good King 
and Queen. Columbus came to tell the King 
and Queen about his plan, and to ask them to 
help him. 

In those days, even the wisest men believed 
that the earth was flat, like a table. They 
thought that if a ship sailed far, far across the 
wide ocean, it would fall off the edge of the 
earth, and down, down into a black hole that was 
so big and deep that it had no bottom. When 
Columbus was a little boy, he would often lie in 
the warm, sunny sands by the seashore and listen 
to the talk of the sailors, who came together and 







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whispered stories of this far-off ocean. Once a 
sailor with long black hair and a big black beard 
told Christopher how his ship had sailed into a 
sea that was so hot that it sometimes boiled up 
like water in a tea-kettle. Another very big 
sailor, with only one eye, said that he had seen 
a big serpent gliding through the water, and 
ugly black demons who lay in wait for ships and 
men. Another sailor told of a bird as big as 
the tallest house. This bird lifted ships in its 
claws and dropped them down into the ocean 
with a great splash, and all the poor sailors were 
drowned. There was an old, old sailor who 
said that he had seen a big, black hand come up 
out of the sea and catch the ships and drag them 
down into the deep ocean. This sailor had a 
big, sharp knife in his belt. Once he whispered 
to little Christopher that he had sailed and sailed 
to the edge of the earth and had looked over the 
edge into the deep, black hole. And he said he 
was so frightened that his hair, that was as brown 
as a tree before, got quite white. He told little 
Christopher that this ocean was so terrible that 
people called it "The Sea of Darkness." 

After many years little Christopher grew up 
to be a brave, wise man. He said, "These stories 
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are foolish. They are not true." He had sailed 
often on the ocean and he had never seen the 
great black bird, or the big hand that came out 
of the sea, or any of these terrible things. He 
had read books, and he thought all night about 
the sea and the earth. "The earth has no edge," 
he said at last; "the earth is round." 

One of the books that Columbus read was 
about a brave sailor named Marco Polo. This 
Marco Polo had gone far away from his little 
white house by the sea. He went always towards 
the rising sun, sometimes walking, sometimes 
riding on queer-looking camels with humps on 
their backs. The book told how Marco Polo 
had found in that far-off country beautiful, shin- 
ing cities, with people in them who had never 
heard of God. This country was called the 
Indies. Marco Polo had brought home with 
him big white pearls and soft silks, and spices 
that smelled strange and sweet, and he said that 
anyone who could reach the Indies could get 
these beautiful things. But it took years and 
years to get there, and there were fierce robbers 
on the road, so the people were afraid to go. 

Columbus, too, wanted to reach this wonderful 
land. But he knew an easier way than the long 



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journey Marco Polo had taken. Columbus knew 
that the earth was round, like an orange, because 
he was very wise. And he said, "If it is round, 
then I can sail around it and I won't fall off the 
edge of the ocean, because there is no edge. So 
I will sail around the earth until I reach the 
Indies." 

Then it was that Columbus went to the King 
and Queen and told them about his plan. The 
King and Queen were much surprised at the 
strange stories that Columbus told them, and 
they called around them their wise men to talk 
about it. The wise men of Spain laughed at 
Columbus. They said: "Columbus says the 
earth is round. If it is round, how do the peo- 
ple on the other side live? They would have to 
stand on their heads; the rain and snow would 
fall up instead of down; the sun would never 
shine there, and it would always be dark. People 
could not live like that." The wise men told 
the King and Queen not to help Columbus, 
because he was crazy. And the little boys and 
girls made fun of Columbus and touched their 
foreheads when he passed them in the streets, 
because their fathers had told them that Colum- 
bus was crazy. 






16 




THE 



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So the King and Queen told Columbus that 
they would not help him. This made Columbus 
very sad. But he knew that he was right, and 
he kept on trying. He followed the King and 
Queen wherever they went. He went with them 
from city to city, always asking them for help. 
But there was a great war in Spain, and the King 
and Queen were too busy about the war to listen 
to Columbus. 

At last Columbus said: "If the King and 
W^ Queen of Spain will not help me, I will go to 
some other king and ask." He started to leave 
Spain. You can well believe that he was very 
sad. But then a very strange thing happened. 
On the way he stopped at a convent to beg some 
bread and water for his little son. This boy's 
name was Diego, which is the Spanish name for 
James. There was a good, wise old man at this 
convent. When he heard the story that Columbus 
told, he said he would help him. So the good 
old man from the convent went to see Queen 
Isabella and begged her to help Columbus. He 
told her how rich and great Spain would become 
if Columbus found the Indies. But still the 
Queen was afraid that Columbus was not right, 
and she said that she would not help him. Then 



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Columbus was angry. He started again to leave 
Spain. This time he almost reached the end of 
Spain when he heard someone calling to him. 
It was a man sent by the Queen. "Good news! 
Good newsl" cried the man. "Good Queen 
Isabella has promised to help you. She has said: 
* I will give Columbus ships and men, even if I 
must sell my golden crown and my beautiful 
rings and chains to get the money.'" 

How glad Columbus was! He had waited a 
long, long time, and now, at last, he could go 
on his voyage. Queen Isabella gave him three 
ships, and sailors to sail them, and she told 
Columbus that if he found the golden Indies she 
would give him barrels of shining gold and some 
of the pearls and diamonds and silks that he 
would find there. Columbus thanked her and 
kissed her hand, which is the way people do with 
Queens. The King and Queen and all the great 
lords, with their shining swords and velvet coats, 
and the pretty ladies came down to sea to say 
good-by to Columbus, and he sailed away into 
the big, strange ocean. 

For many days Columbus sailed and sailed 
and sailed. At first the sailors with him were 
happy and obedient, for Columbus said, "I will 




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give you lots of beautiful things when we reach 
the Indies." But as they sailed day after day 
into this strange ocean, they grew very, very 
much afraid. At night, when Columbus could 
not see them, they got together and whispered 
to each other stories of the big black hand that 
pulled ships down into the sea, and of the great 
bird that lifted ships high into the air and then 
dropped them deep into the ocean, so that the 
poor sailors were drowned. Even the soft, gen- 
tle wind that blew always from the east fright- 
ened them. " How can we ever get back to 
Spain," they cried, "if the wind blows always 
away from Spain?" For in those days they had 
no steamers, with big engines that can send ships 
anywhere. They had only ships with sails, which 
went the way the wind blew. 

At last the sailors begged Columbus to go 
back. "We shall all die in this strange sea," 
they cried, "and we shall never see our wives 
and little babies. Let us go back." But 
Columbus would not go back. Every day he 
told them stories of the rich, beautiful country 
which they would find. And he told them to 
be brave. But after a while they would not listen 
any more; and when they found that Columbus 



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would not go back, some of them said: "Let 
us throw Columbus into the sea. Then we can 
go back to Spain, and if any one asks us, 'Where 
is Columbus?' we will say that he fell into the 
ocean." Columbus knew what they said, but 
he was brave and was not afraid. He believed 
that if he sailed far enough he would reach the 
beautiful Indies. 

Then, one day, they saw something on the 
far-off ocean, and the sailors joyfully shouted, 
** Land! Land! " But when they sailed near, they 
saw it was only a cloud. Then the sailors were 
sad again. Every day they all looked out for 
land. Queen Isabella had promised a handful 
of shining gold to the one who first saw land, 
and Columbus said he would also give a fine 
velvet coat. 

How lonely the poor sailors were ! Every day 
they saw nothing but the wide, wide ocean, with 
the rolling waves. At last, one day, some birds 
flew over the ships. "Look! Look!" the sailors 
shouted joyfully. And they said, "If there are 
birds, there must be land for them to rest on." 
But although they looked and looked, and sailed 
quickly after the birds, they could not find 
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Then, on another day, Columbus fished out 
of the sea a hawthorn branch with berries on 
it, and a carved stick. The sailors crowded 
around to look at the branch and the stick, and 
laughed and sang for joy. "There must be land 
for the hawthorn to grow on," they said, "and 
there must be people who carved this stick." 
Everyone was glad and happy and watched eagerly 
for land. 

Columbus watched too. One night he stood 
alone on his ship, looking out over the black 
ocean. All at once he saw a little light in the 
darkness. It was so little he could not be sure 
it was a light. So he called two of his men and 
asked them whether they could see the light. 
"Yes! yes! " they cried, "we can see it. It seems 
to move up and down." Still, they could not be 
quite sure until, about two hours afterwards, 
when the morning began to grow brighter, one 
of the other ships fired a gun. This meant that 
they had seen land. 

When the sun came up, everyone could see 
the land. It was a beautiful land, with waving 
green trees and flowers. But it seemed even more 
beautiful than it really was to brave Columbus 
and his poor, tired sailors, because they had seen 







21 



THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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nothing but the wide ocean for so many days. 
They quickly rowed their boats to the shore and 
landed. Columbus was dressed in shining steel, 
with a beautiful red cloak, and he carried the 
red and yellow flag of Spain. His captains also 
carried flags. They all knelt down on the shore 
and thanked God for bringing them to this 
beautiful place. 

They did not see any of the beautiful cities 
that Marco Polo had written about, but men 
came out of the woods and ran up to them on 
the beach. These men had straight black hair 
and brown skins, with bright-colored feathers in 
their hair, and they had hardly any clothes on. 
"Look! Look at the people from heaven!" they 
cried, when they saw Columbus and his men, 
with their white skins and beautiful clothes, and 
their ships, which looked like big white birds. 
These people were Indians — not fierce like the 
Indians we know, but very kind and gentle. 
Columbus had never seen an Indian before, and 
the Indians had never seen a white man in all 
their lives. So both Columbus and the Indians 
were very much surprised and looked at each 
other for a long time. Columbus was very kind 
to the Indians. He gave them little red caps 



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and pretty glass beads and little tinkling bells. 
The Indians liked these things very much, and 
they gave Columbus fresh fruits and beautiful red 
and green parrots and little bits of gold. 

Columbus called these people Indians because 
he thought this country was part of the Indies 
that Marco Polo had written about. He did not 
know that he had discovered a wonderful new 
world, far richer and more beautiful than the 
golden Indies. This new world was our own 
America, the beautiful land where we all live 
now. 

After a while, Columbus went back to Spain 
to tell the King and Queen about this land. 
When Columbus sailed up to the city by the sea, 
the people in Spain cheered and rang bells and 
fired guns to show their joy. When Columbus 
came to the throne, the King and Queen made 
him sit down beside them. This was a great 
honor, because no one is allowed to sit down 
when a king or queen is in the room. So 
Columbus sat down and told them how he had 
sailed across the Sea of Darkness and at last 
found this beautiful country. How glad now 
was the good Queen Isabella that she had sent 
Columbus! She made him a great lord in Spain 



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THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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and gave him gold and jewels; and she kept 
his little son Diego always with her, to hold up 
her long silken train and to carry her fan and 
handkerchief. 

Columbus was happy now. But he wanted 
to see more of this new land, and he sailed across 
the ocean again three times. Once, while he 
was away, some wicked men told the King and 
Queen lies about Columbus. The King and 
Queen believed what these wicked men said, and 
they ordered their soldiers to put big iron chains 
on Columbus' hands and feet and send him back 
to Spain. Poor Columbus! How sad he felt! 
When they came to Spain and Columbus saw 
Queen Isabella, she soon found that he was a 
good man and that the stories about him were 
not true, and she told the soldiers to take the 
chains off Columbus, and said she was sorry. 
But Columbus was still sad, because after he had 
found this beautiful country for Spain, they had 
put chains on him. So he always kept the 
chains, and when he died, he asked the people 
to bury the chains with him. 

There was another thing that happened that 
Was not fair to Christopher Columbus. When 
a man finds a new country, it always ought to 




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be named after him. But our country was never 
called Columbia. About seven years after 
Columbus found the new country, an Italian, 
named Amerigo Vespucci, sailed across the ocean 
and wrote a little book about the new land. He 
did not say one word about Christopher Columbus 
being there first. So many foolish people thought 
that Amerigo was the man who found the new 
country, and they called it America, in honor of 
Amerigo. And this is its name to-day; and this, 
I think, will always be its name. 

Columbus was old when he died, and he was 
poor, too. Good, kind Queen Isabella had died, 
and the King forgot that Columbus had found a 
beautiful new country for him, and he did not 
give him any more money. So Columbus was 
sad and poor. After he was dead the people 
knew that the country he had found was not the 
Indies, but a rich, wonderful country, our own 
America. And that is why all good Americans 
love the name of Christopher Columbus, because 
he came and found America. 



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The WHITE TYRANT ./DARIEN 

HRISTOPHER COLUMBUS was not only 
a brave man, he was also a very good man. 
I wish that I could say the same of all the Span- 
iards who came after him. But many of these 
men were cruel and deceitful and wicked. They 
were not kind to the Indians, and they fought and 
robbed and cheated, and their only thought was 
to grow rich. 

Now, one of the most wicked of all these 
Spaniards was Balboa. His full name was Vasco 
Nunez de Balboa, but I think I shall call him 
only Balboa. He was as cruel as a man could 
be. He liked to see people suffer, and if anyone 
was in trouble, Balboa would not help him, but 
would laugh at the poor man's misfortune. He 
borrowed money and promised to pay it back; 
but when the time came, he told the people who 
had lent him the money to get it back the best 
way they could. He quarreled with everybody, 
and everybody said that he was a wicked, wicked 
man. 

This Balboa was born in Spain; but like many 
other Spaniards, he went to America to live. 





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Now there was in America a great island called 
Hispaniola, where many Spaniards had houses. 
These Spaniards were very cruel to the kind, 
gentle Indians. They made slaves of them, and 
they made them work so very hard and so very 
long that many of the poor Indians died. And all 
the while the Spaniards lived without doing any 
work themselves. They walked about in their 
fine clothes, and they drank and swore and 
quarreled with one another, and in every way 
were as bad as bad could be. And of all these 
wicked Spaniards, Balboa was the worst. When- 
ever anything wicked was to be done, Balboa 
would do it. You see he was not only wicked, but 
very brave and very, very bold. 

Well, after a while, Balboa grew tired of the 
lazy life in Hispaniola. He wanted to become 
rich, and it was harder to get money in His- 
paniola than in other parts of America. Besides, 
nobody in all the island liked Balboa. He was 
so cruel and quarrelsome, so unkind to the 
Indians, that the people used to look at him coldly, 
and shake their heads when they passed him in 
the street. Then, too, those who had lent money 
to him began to want it back again, and some 
men said to Balboa, ** If you do not pay back the 



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money you owe us, we shall throw you into 
prison, and there you can stay in the dark with 
the rats and the mice until you die." For in 
those cruel days, a man who could not pay his 
debts was thrown into prison. Now, you can 
well believe that the wicked Balboa was only 
too anxious to get away from the island. But 
how could he do it? He could not walk away, 
because an island has water on all sides, and he 
could not go by boat, because he had no money; 
so he thought and thought and thought. And at 
last Balboa hit upon a very clever plan. One 
day he walked down to the sea-coast, where a 
ship was being loaded, and when nobody was 
watching he quickly crawled into a great empty 
wine-cask and pulled the lid on the top. There 
he waited and waited, hour after hour, afraid 
every moment that someone would miss him and 
look in the wine-casks on the boat. He hardly 
dared breathe, and even the beating of his heart 
seemed to him as loud as a great drum. 

But no one came, and at last the boat took up 
its anchor and sailed away. Then Balboa was very 
happy, for he knew that he was free from His- 
paniola and all the pepole who hated him and 
all the people to whom he owed money. He 




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knew that he would not have to go to prison. 
But at first he was afraid to come out of the cask, 
because he was afraid of what the captain would 
say when he saw him. He waited a good many 
hours in the barrel, but at last he gave a shove 
to the lid, and out popped the red face and red 
beard of Balboa. As he did so, he heard the 
captain and all the sailors give a great shout, for 
you may be sure that they were much surprised 
to see a man's head come out of a barrel. 

Now, the captain, whose name was Encisco, 
was a very disagreeable man, and he was quite 
angry when he saw Balboa's head come out of the 
barrel. He did not like to carry people on his 
ship for nothing, and he thought that Balboa had 
cheated him when he hid himself in a barrel. 
"What does this mean?" he shouted, and then 
he swore so many oaths that I am glad you and 
I were not there, though perhaps we could not 
have understood, because it was all in Spanish. 

Well, when Balboa told the captain how he 
had to run away from the island, and how he had 
no money to pay for the voyage, Encisco became 
angrier and angrier. He stamped his foot and 
shook his fist; his eyes got black, and he swore 
and swore and swore. "I will tell you what I. 



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29 



M E N 




WHO 



FOUND 



AMERICA 



will do with you," roared the captain so loud 
that the wicked Balboa shook with fear; "I shall 
put you on a desert island without food or water 
and you can starve to death, you wicked cheater." 
Now, I must say that Balboa was a brave man, 
but at these cruel words he became very fright- 
ened. He knew that Encisco would do as he 
said. In those days people did not think much 
about killing each other, and Balboa was so cruel 
himself that he would have treated the captain 
just as cruelly as the captain was now going to 
treat him; so Balboa threw himself on his 
knees and begged the captain to spare his life. 
He begged and begged, but the more he begged, 
the more the captain swore and the angrier he 
grew. But at last, he did feel a little sorry for 
Balboa; so he said, "Get up from your knees. 
This time I will spare your life." Now, you 
will think, perhaps, that Balboa was very grateful 
to the captain for sparing his life, but really he 
was not. He kissed the captain's hand and 
thanked him over and over again, and swore that 
he would lay down his life for Encisco whenever 
he wished it; but in his real secret heart he 
hated the captain and only waited for the chance 
to do him harm. 




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THE WHITE TYRANT OF DARIEN 










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Well, the chance came sooner even than Balboa 
had thought. One day a great storm came up 
and the little ship tossed and rocked and everybody 
was afraid that the boat would go down. The 
sailors, who were wicked men, went down on 
their knees and tried to pray that their lives 
might be spared. But they had all forgotten 
how to say their prayers, and the storm grew 
worse and worse, and at last the little ship was 
dashed to pieces on a rocky coast. The sailors 
all fell into the sea, but luckily for them the water 
was not deep and they were able to swim ashore 
alive. At last the men were all on land again, 
but not one of them knew the name of the place 
or the name of the country where they had been 
wrecked. They looked up and down the coast, 
but everywhere they found only sand and rocks, 
and back a little way great woods of waving 
palm-trees. 

Now the captain ought always to know where 
he takes his ship; so each of the sailors asked 
the captain the name of the country. But the 
captain had never been in any of that country, 
and he did not know the name any better than 
the sailors; so you may well believe that they 
were all very much frightened. Then up spoke 




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the crafty Balboa. He had been very quiet and 
respectful on the boat, because he was still afraid 
of the desert island; but here on the land he was 
as bold as you please. " Captain," he said, "I know 
where we are, for I have been here before. This 
is the country of Darien, and a little way off is 
an Indian village to which I will take you." 

Now, when the sailors heard these words of 
Balboa, they were very glad. They cheered and 
cheered and threw up their caps, which were still 
wet from the sea-water. Then they all started 
off for the Indian village, everybody following 
bold Balboa, and if you had looked on at 
this strange march, you would have thought that 
Balboa was the real captain and Encisco only a 
sailor. It was not easy to march through this 
country of Darien, because the Indians were very 
unfriendly. You see, before this time some other 
Spaniards had come to the country, and robbed 
and killed and tortured the Indians. Perhaps 
Balboa was one of these very men. Well, any- 
way, the Indians did not love the white men who 
had been so cruel, and so from behind trees they 
shot arrows at the ship-wrecked sailors. Many 
sailors were killed and more were wounded; but 
Balboa, though very wicked, was a brave and 



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THE WHITE TYRANT OF DARIEN 



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wise General, and he beat off the Indians and 
got the sailors safely to the little Indian village. 

At last the time had come for Balboa to make 
Captain Encisco sorry for wanting to put him off 
on a desert island. You see Balboa could never 
forgive the captain for making him kneel and 
beg for his life. Besides, he was very proud and 
wanted all the glory for himself. So Balboa took 
the sailors aside one by one, and whispered to 
each of them, "Encisco is a poor captain and I 
am a good one. Make me your captain and I 
will treat you better than Encisco does." So 
the sailors all made Balboa their captain. 

Now, at last, Balboa had his wish and was a 
great man in a new country. Here he could 
get money and become very rich; but I am 
sorry to say that he was always very, very cruel. 
He used to rob the poor Indians and murder 
them, and when they did not have as much gold 
as he wanted, he would tie them up by their 
thumbs until they screamed with pain. He made 
them hang there until they told him where more 
gold could be found. Sometimes the poor 
Indians would not know; but just to be rid of 
the pain, they would pretend that gold was hid- 
den in the forest and they would take Balboa to 



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the place. But if Balboa did not find any gold 
there, and often he did not, it went still worse 
with the poor Indians. He would burn them 
alive on a slow fire, so that they would suffer 
great pain. Indeed, he grew so cruel that the 
Indians called him "The White Tyrant of 
Darien." 

One day the son of an Indian chief came to 
where Balboa was living and spoke to the tyrant. 
You always want gold," said he, "but I will 
show you something still better. Come with me 
a few days to the West, and you may see an 
ocean as great as the great sea you sailed when 
you came from your home." Now, Balboa thought, 
" If I can find this great sea and be the first 
white man to look at it, then I shall be a famous 
man. Besides, there may be gold and silver and 
jewels in the lands beyond this new sea." So off 
he went, taking with him the chief's son and 
some of the Spanish sailors. It was not a long 
journey, and in a few days they came to a 
mountain. This the Indian told Balboa to climb. 
" From the top," he said, "you will see the great 
ocean." 

Balboa told all his men to stay below, and he 
went up alone to the top of the mountain ; and 



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what the Indian had said came true. There lay 
the great sea, stretching in all directions as far 
as the eye could reach. The blue waters were 
as quiet as a little lake ; but Balboa knew that 
this was a great ocean. And it was a great 
ocean — the Pacific Ocean, which is the greatest 
body of water in the world. So Balboa, who had 
run away from Hispaniola and had hidden him- 
self in a barrel, was the first white man to see it. 

Then Balboa, wicked and cruel though he 
was, knelt down on the top of the mountain 
and thanked God that he had been the first to 
see this great ocean. After that he called up 
his men. Up they ran, each trying to be the 
first, and when they reached the top, they all 
looked with wonder at the great, peaceful sea, 
that shone so beautifully in the noonday sun. 

Then the men piled up great stones until 
there was a high heap, and Balboa went down 
the mountain and carved the name of King 
Ferdinand upon the bark of the trees. A few 
days later Balboa came down the mountain to 
the sea, which before he had only seen, but not 
touched. He walked a little way out into the 
ocean, and, waving his sword in the air, cried 
out in a loud voice that 'all that great sea and 



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MEN 




WHO FOUND AMERICA 




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all the islands in it and all the lands about it 
belonged to Ferdinand, the King of Spain. 

Now, if any one did such a foolish thing to- 
day, I believe that we would all laugh at him. 
A great ocean cannot belong to any one man, 
even if he is a King, or even to any one nation, 
but to all the nations and all the people of the 
world. But King Ferdinand was very proud 
when he heard of what the bold Balboa had 
done, and so he made him the ruler of the 
great ocean he had found. 

But the wicked Balboa did not go without 
punishment for all his evil deeds. Every day he 
became more hard and more cruel. He did 
not keep his promise to be kinder than Encisco, 
and everybody hated him, even the people who 
knew that he was brave. So one day the Gov- 
ernor of Darien had him sent to prison, and a 
short time after that Balboa's head was cut off. 

I do not know that anybody was sorry. Balboa 
was a very brave, bold man, and he did find the 
Pacific Ocean. But the braver a man is, the 
more gentle and kind and good he should be; 
so I think Balboa deserved his death, just as he 
deserved the name the Indians had given him 
of "The White Tyrant of Darien." 



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THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS 







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THE BEAUTIFUL CITY 
.///^.FLOATING ISLANDS 




C'>OLUMBUS had gone on his great journey 
^ to find gold, but nowhere did he find it. 
Other Spaniards came to America, all looking for 
gold, like Columbus. But gold does not grow 
in the street nor on the dusty roads. It is found 
in gold mines, deep, deep under the earth, where 
men work by candle-light and dig and dig. 

Now, there was a man named Cortez, who 
wanted gold — much gold. He wanted to become 
a very rich man and go back to Spain, and live 
in a beautiful castle, with servants, and horses, 
and fine clothes, and jewels of many colors that 
glistened in the sun. Cortez was a very young 
man when he went to America to live. He was 
only nineteen, but he was strong and as brave as 
a lion. There was a Spanish Governor in the 
island where Cortez lived, and the Governor did 
not like Cortez. He threw the young man into 
prison, and when Cortez escaped, the Governor 
threw him in again. But Cortez was very brave 
and very clever, and so once more he got away, 







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and hid himself so that the Governor could not 
find him. 

Now, there had come news from further west, 
from the land which we now call Mexico, that 
there was much gold in that land. So the 
Governor of the island said to himself, "I will 
send some soldiers there, and they will take the 
gold away from the Indians and bring it to me ; 
then I shall be a rich man, and can go back to 
Spain and live in a castle." For in those days 
there were castles in Spain, large and gray and 
beautiful, with great iron gates and a ditch of 
water all around, so that no man could enter 
except the friends of the owner. You see the 
Governor of this island wanted to be rich and 
great, and that is why he sent a little army of 
Spanish soldiers to the new land of Mexico. 

"Who is the man that will lead my army?" 
asked the Governor. "There will be many 
dangers. Perhaps the ships will go down in a 
storm and all will be drowned; perhaps the food 
will give out and the soldiers and their Generals will 
die from hunger, or it may be that the Indians 
will fight them and shoot them to death with 
bows and arrows. I must have a good General — 
strong, and as brave as a lion." And then he 





THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS 







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thought of Cortez, the brave, strong young 
Spaniard, and he made him General of the Httle 
army. 

So one day the ships sailed away to the new 
land of Mexico. Cortez cheered the men by telling 
them stories of the great country they were going 
to find. "We are to sail and to fight," said he; 
"to fight for our good King, for Spain and for God. 
The people that live in this land are not Christians. 
They do not believe in our God, and we must 
teach them about Him and make them Christ- 
ians." But even while he spoke, the young 
Cortez thought of gold, gold, gold — dollars of 
gold piled up to the sky; goblets and plates and 
dishes of gold; tables and chairs of gold. Gold, 
gold, yellow gold, that would make the young 
Spaniard the richest man in all the world. 

The little ships took up their anchors and 
sailed west towards the sun setting in the waters. 
It was a beautiful sea, all green and blue, with here 
and there reefs of white coral, and at last, far in 
the distance, they saw the beautiful new land of 
Mexico. The sun shone bright upon the green 
trees of the forest, and all the flowers of the field, 
red and purple and blue and yellow, glistened in 
the bright light. The boats came up to the shore. 




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"Here," cried Cortez, as he stood on the white 
beach, "here I shall found my city, and I shall 
call it the 'City of the True Cross,' in honor of ^^^^1^ 
God and the good King of Spain." And to this 
day the city bears that name — the "City of the 
True Cross." 

Now, there lived in the new land of Mexico, 
high up behind the mountains, a nation of 
Indians called Aztecs. They were very proud 
and strong and brave, and had conquered many 
peoples. These Aztecs were not like the Indians 
we see in the circus. They had a beautiful city 
made of wood and stone, with houses full of gold 
and silver ornaments, and this wonderful city was 
built upon floating islands. The King of the 
Aztecs was a very great man. His name was 
Montezuma, and his father had been King before 
him and his grandfather had been King before 
Aim; and so, for so many, many years, that no one 
among the Aztecs, even the oldest, could remem- 
ber. 

Now, there was a story among the Aztecs that 
some day the Children of the Sun would come 
from the East and drive Montezuma and his 
Indians away. These Children of the Sun, 
according to the story, were not red like the 





40 




"The kind King Montezuma wanted peace, and said that he would give the 
Spaniards more gold if they would only go back to their own country." 



THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS 



± 




Aztecs, but white like Cortez and his Spanish 
soldiers. So when Montezuma heard of the 
white men, who had come and founded the 
City of the True Cross, he called his wise men 
together. They were very old and very wise, 
and they bowed deep to Montezuma, because he 
was King, and they listened to what he said. 

"Now, my Lords," said Montezuma to the 
wise men about him, "I have strange news to 
tell you. There have come from the East the 
Children of the Sun. They are white men, with 
black hair and beards, and their clothes are 
made of metal as bright as silver, so that it 
glistens in the sun. They ride on big, strong 
animals that run faster than a man." You 
see, Montezuma had never seen horses. "And," 
went on the King, "these children have come 
here in houses that sail on the sea — in ships 
such as we Aztecs know not of. I fear that, 
when they see our beautiful city, they will kill 
our people, and then the Aztec nation will be 
no more." 

The King paused, and in the great hall, where 
the wise men were gathered, all was silent, so 
silent that the breathing of the wise men could 
be heard. Then again the King spoke: 




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THE 



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"My Lords!" he called out, "what shall I 
do?" 

And a young man, the bravest of all the 
Aztec princes, arose quietly and, facing the King, 
answered his question. 

"The Aztecs, my Lord," he said, " have always 
fought. We must do as our fathers have ever 
done, fight for our King and our beautiful 'City 
of the Floating Islands.'" 

Montezuma was silent as he listened to the 
brave words of the young prince, and all the 
wise men were silent too. 

Then a very old man, the oldest and wisest 
of all the wise men in the kingdom, rose in his 
turn; and all the wise men listened as the old 
man spoke. 

"Not so, my gracious King, not so," he said 
slowly. "We are brave men, but we cannot 
fight the Children of the Sun. It is true that 
our soldiers are many and the white men are 
few; but the Sun has given to them his fire. 
They have tubes that are called guns, and when 
the Indians fight these white children, the tubes 
speak out fire and noise, which kill the red men. 
Where are our brothers to the East who have 
fought the white men? Dead, my Lord, dead. 



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THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS 













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We cannot fight against the Sun or against his 
children. We must send to the white men 
presents — rich presents of gold and silver, and 
beg them to go away in their houses that sail the 
sea — to go away, they, and their horses, and their 
guns, and not come up to our beautiful city." 

And as the old man had said, so the King 
Montezuma did. He gathered together great 
chests of gold and silver, dresses and cloaks of 
bright green peacock feathers, and heaps and 
heaps of red rubies, and milky white pearls, and 
precious jewels that glistened in the sun. "Take 
these to the white men," he said to his servants; 
"take this gold and silver and all these beautiful 
gifts to the white men, who are Children of the 
Sun, and beg them to go away and not come 
up to our beautiful city." 

The servants did as Montezuma had bidden 
them. They did not have horses, but all day 
and all night they ran as swift as the bird flies, 
until at last they came to where Cortez and his 
soldiers waited. Then they fell on their knees 
and bowed their heads to the ground. 

"Behold, oh Children of the Sun," they said, 
"this gold and silver, and all these rubies and 
precious stones, and all these beautiful things 




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43 




MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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are the presents of our good King Montezuma 
to the white men who have come from the East ; 
and our King Montezuma begs the white men 
not to go up to his beautiful city, but to take 
the gold and silver and to go away in their 
wonderful houses that sail on the sea." 

Now, when Cortez saw all the gold and silver 
that Montezuma had sent, he became very greedy. 
He wanted still more gold, and he knew that if 
Montezuma could send him such beautiful 
presents, there must be great riches in the won- 
derful city. So he said to the waiting servants, 
"Tell your good King Montezuma that I thank 
him for the gold and silver which he has sent 
me, and that I and all my men with me will 
come to visit him in his beautiful city." 

Then the servants went back with the mes- 
sage. Now, it was a long and dangerous journey 
to the beautiful city of the Aztecs, and Cortez 
feared that his men might be afraid to go so far 
from their ships, so he called them together. 
"I am going on a long and dangerous journey," 
he said; "those who go with me shall become 
rich, very rich, but those who are afraid can 
stay here on the seacoast." And the soldiers 
answered, "You are our General, Cortez, and 





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44 



THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS 






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where you go we will go too." Then Cortez 
burned his ships so that no one could turn back, 
and with his little army marched up to the 
beautiful city where King Montezuma lived. 

Now, when Montezuma heard that the white 
men were coming to his beautiful city, he did 
not know what to do. Some of his wise men 
said, " Let us fight the Children of the Sun," and 
others said, "Let us have peace; let us welcome 
the white men as guests to our city." So Monte- 
zuma did not know what to do. 

When Cortez reached the high lands and 
looked out upon the city, he saw the strangest 
sight in the world. The city was built on islands 
that floated on the lakes, and there was water all 
about it, and bridges with gates, and soldiers that 
stood by the gates to keep the white men out. 
And Cortez was afraid. You see the bridges were 
very narrow, and it would have been very easy 
for the Aztecs to shoot the Spanish soldiers as 
they crossed the bridges; so the crafty Cortez 
said to the Indians, "Listen, my friends; let us 
come into your beautiful City of the Floating 
Islands, for we are tired after our long journey. 
Let us rest with you a little, for we are your 
friends and we wish you to be ours." 




iO^ 



45 



THE 



MEN 



WHO 



FOUND AMERICA 





So the Aztecs let the white men cross the 
bridges and enter the gates of their city. Now, 
as soon as Cortez and his soldiers were inside 
the city they behaved very badly. They went out 
on the streets and quarreled with the Aztecs. 
They found fault with the palace, which the good 
King Montezuma had given them to live in, and 
they always thought of ways in which to take from 
the Aztecs their gold and silver and precious 
stones. Now, Cortez, who was very strong and 
brave, was also very cruel and deceitful. He invited 
Montezuma to come and see him in his palace, 
and when the Aztec King came to see him, 
Cortez told his soldiers to hold him prisoner. 
Then the white men went out into the streets 
and fought the good Indians and killed many of 
them. The kind King Montezuma wanted peace, 
and said that he would give the Spaniards more 
gold if they would only go back to their own 
country. But the Spaniards did not wish to go 
back, not until they had found all the gold and 
silver in all the land of the Aztecs. So they 
fought battles, many battles, and the Spaniards, 
who were brave, but very, very cruel, conquered 
all that country. Many of the Aztecs were killed, 
and even the good King Montezuma lost his life. 




niutuMt 





46 



THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS 





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Thus it all came to pass just as the wise men 
had foretold, and the City of the Floating Islands 
became the white men's city. 

But it did not go well with Cortez. To be 
sure, at first he became very rich, and had 
beautiful houses, and lands, and horses, and gold 
and silver; but he did not long keep these things. 
He grew poor again, and when he got to be an 
old man, he was very sad and unhappy. And 
sometimes I think he must have been sorry for 
his cruelties, and lies, and wickedness, and for all 
the unkind things he did to the poor Aztecs when 
he and his soldiers went up into Mexico and 
conquered the beautiful City of the Floating 
Islands. 



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MEN 




WHO FOUND AMERICA 




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V 



THE SWINEHERD WHO 
WANTED A CASTLE 

ONCE upon a time, there lived in a little 
village in Spain a boy who tended pigs. 
He was a very ragged boy. His clothes were 
old and torn; he wore no cap, and he had never 
in all his life had on a pair of shoes. His food 
was even worse than his clothing. He ate nuts 
and grapes and stale crusts of bread, and some- 
times he had cheese. But meat he could not 
have more than once a month. This was be- 
cause the boy was very, very poor. 

Now, it is not pleasant to tend pigs. They 
are such dirty animals, and they grunt and grunt 
and make ugly noises all the time. It is very 
disagreeable to sit all day and have nothing to 
do but to talk to filthy pigs, and see that they 
do not walk off into the woods and get lost. 
So the little Spanish boy hated his work and 
wished that he could get away. 

The name of this little boy was Francisco 
Pizarro. I do not wish to pretend that he was 
a good boy, because he was not. He was a 




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THE SWINEHERD WHO WANTED 



CASTLE 




bad boy, and he grew up to be a wicked man; 
but one thing I must say for him, he was surely 
very brave. And perhaps he became bad be- 
cause, as a boy, he did not have a good home 
nor any nice boys to play with. 

Near where Francisco lived was a beautiful 
castle. It had big, light rooms, and long tables, 
and fine gilt chairs, and wonderful pictures, and 
everything that the heart could desire. Fran- 
cisco had never seen the inside of this castle. 
There was a great wall all around it, and in this 
wall a big, strong gate that was locked every 
night. A soldier in a yellow-and-red coat stood 
at this gate, and of course he would not let the 
ragged little swineherd in. The young Fran- 
cisco used to watch the old soldier as he pulled 
at his mustache, and sometimes, when the soldier 
wasn't looking, the boy pressed his head against 
the iron bars and looked into the garden. He 
could only see a little corner of the castle, but 
he saw the beautiful trees in the garden, and the 
soft, green grass and the fountain which seemed 
so cool in the hot afternoons. 

It made Francisco very angry to see this 
beautiful garden and not be allowed to go into 
it. He complained to his mother, but she could 



v^ 







49 




as; 



ii^:-- 



not do anything, because it wasn't her castle, 
and she was as poor as Francisco. "You are 
only a swineherd," she said to him, "and swine- 
herds cannot have castles; so stop thinking of 
the castle and go back to your pigs." 

But Francisco did not stop thinking of the 
castle. He had seen in the garden a little boy 
of his own age, and he saw that the boy's 
clothes were made of fine, soft cloth, and that 
he had a lovely black feather in his cap. He 
remembered, too, that a kind old man, with a 
long white beard, had walked with this boy in 
the garden, and had taught him many things 
out of a great book. Poor Francisco had never 
been to school, and he had never had a teacher, 
like this boy with the fine clothes; but he 
wanted all the things that the little boy in the 
garden had, and he made up his mind that he 
would get them. 

I told you before that Francisco was not a 
good boy, and so he did not ask himself whether 
it was right for him to want all these things. 
"I do not care," he said almost out loud; "I 
do not care what my mother says, or what the 
priest says, or anybody. Good or bad, right or 
wrong, I am going to get my castle." That 



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will show you the sort of a boy Francisco really 
was. 

Now, Francisco saw that it was no use to 
stay in his little village; there he would always 
be a swineherd. Every day he hated the pigs 
more and more. He hated them so much that 
he threw stones at them when they squealed. 
At last, with two other boys, he ran away". I 
think that Francisco and his two friends were 
a little afraid, at first, that their mothers would 
send after them and catch them. So they went 
away by night, and by the next morning they 
were far along the quiet road. Day after day 
they walked. They used to find chestnuts on 
the ground, and over the high, green hedges 
hung bunches of wild purple grapes that any- 
body might pick. The good country people 
were all as poor as poor could be; but they 
always gave the tired boys a bite of bread and 
a cup of goat's milk. Francisco was very 
happy. He was glad to be away from the dirty, 
squealing pigs, and he believed that every step 
he took brought him nearer to the castle he had 
dreamed of. 

At last, the boys reached Seville. Now, 
Seville was a very large and beautiful city. 




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There were fine houses and glorious palaces, 
like the castle that Francisco wanted, and women 
in beautiful dresses and men rode up and 
down the crowded streets on great black horses. 
It was all like Wonderland; and, as Francisco 
looked at everything — the streets, shops and 
people — his eyes almost popped out of his head. 

But in this rich city of Seville, Francisco 
was poorer than ever before in all his life. 
Here in the great city nobody cared for the 
ragged boy, and there were no kind country 
people to give him bread and goat's milk. Yet, 
after a while, Francisco managed to make a little 
money, though even then he was still poor. 
Often he went to bed without supper, and his 
castle seemed to be as far away as ever. 

Of all the things in the great city of Seville, 
Francisco liked the soldiers best. They seemed 
so big and brave in their beautiful uniforms, and 
the boy envied them and wished that he, too, 
could be a soldier. "It's a good way to get 
rich," he thought to himself. It ^vas a good 
way in those times. Nowadays people don't 
get rich by killing each other; but in the olden 
days, to be a soldier was one of the best ways 
to get money and become great. 



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52 



THE SWINEHERD WHO WANTED A CASTLE 



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So Pizarro, who was now quite big and strong, 
became a soldier. A great war was being fought 
in Italy, and Pizarro was sent there with other 
Spanish soldiers to fight for his King. The 
young man was very brave. I think that, even 
then, he was cruel, but the Spaniards did not 
care about that, so long as he was only brave. 
So when he came back from the great war in 
Italy, everybody said "Pizarro is a very good 
soldier." 

Now, in the meantime, Columbus had found 
America. I told you, in another story, how the 
people in Spain were very glad over the news, 
and how everybody wanted to go to the wonder- 
ful new lands to make a fortune. Well, you 
may be sure that Pizarro wanted to go too; but 
for a long time he could not leave Spain. I 
cannot tell you why, because I do not know 
myself. Anyhow, he could not. But at last he 
got a chance, and with a band of other Spaniards 
went to the new country that Columbus had 
found. 

By this time Pizarro was no longer a boy, 
nor even a young man; he was almost forty 
years of age. He had seen many lands and 
done many things; yet he was still poor, and it 



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seemed to him as though the castle that he had 
dreamed of as a boy was as far away as ever. 

Well, at first America was no better than 
Spain. Pizarro lived on a rich island, which 
was then named Hispaniola, but which is now 
called Cuba. There were many other Spaniards 
on the island, and these were all just as greedy 
and anxious to get rich as Pizarro. They were 
a very wicked set of men. All the bad things 
that a man can do they did; but above all, they 
were cruel to the poor Indians. They used to 
make the red men work for them day and night, 
and if the work was not enough, they beat the 
poor Indians until they died. I think that 
Pizarro was just as cruel as the rest; but in 
spite of his wickedness he did not get rich. 

Now, after a while, when Pizarro was almost 
fifty years old, he went to a new country in 
America, where the Indians were very rich, and 
where there were very few Spaniards. This was 
the land of Darien, where Balboa had gone 
about ten years before. Here the friendly 
Indians had much gold and many beautiful 
jewels. They gave to Pizarro many precious 
stones and more gold than he had had in all 
his life; so the swineherd became rich at last. 




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But Pizarro was not satisfied even with these 
riches. The more he had, the more he wanted; 
so one day, when he heard of some islands in 
the great ocean to the West, where the Indians 
were very rich, he made up his mind to go to 
these islands and take the gold from these In- 
dians. His men were very glad to go, so they 
got canoes and paddled out to where the islands 
lay. This was a very bold thing to do, because 
the sea was rough, and many times the canoes 
turned over and the soldiers were almost 
drowned. 

At last they reached the island, and Pizarro, 
standing up in his canoe, saw the Indians crowd- 
ing on the beach, with their bows and arrows 
in hand, ready to shoot the first Spaniard who 
landed. Now, Pizarro, though a wicked and 
greedy man, was very brave; so he told his 
soldiers to fire their guns. As soon as the In- 
dians heard the guns of the Spaniards they were 
frightened, and after a little battle they ran 
away. Then Pizarro and his men landed on 
the sandy beach. Here they found many pearls, 
which they took, and when there were no more 
pearls on the island, they paddled back to their 
homes. 



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when Pizarro had sold these pearls he was 
very rich indeed. He had now enough money 
to buy his castle. It was really not exactly a 
castle, but a fine, big house in Darien, with 
fields around it and cattle, and a great many 
Indian servants to do whatever Pizarro wanted. 
You would think ?io^v that Pizarro would be 
satisfied, for he was a hundred times richer than 
the other little boy who used to live in the castle 
in the old, old days when Pizarro was only a 
swineherd. 

But the greedy Pizarro was never satisfied. 
After a few years, he heard how the brave 
Cortez had conquered Mexico, and he heard, 
too, that Cortez had become even richer than 
he was. So Pizarro wanted to be as rich as 
Cortez, and he looked around for a new nation 
to conquer. 

Now, at this time there was living in Peru, 
many hundreds of miles to the South, a great 
tribe of Indians called the Incas. They were 
not savages, but wise, kind people like the 
Aztecs of Mexico, whom Cortez had conquered. 
These Incas were very rich. They had won- 
derful gold and silver mines, and they owned so 
much gold and silver that they could cover 






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If >uu will let me go free, Pizarro, I will fill up this room with yr.ld, and 

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walls with them; and they also had precious 
stones, green emeralds, red rubies, blue sapphires 
and beautiful, brilliant diamonds that glistened 

in the sun. 

I could tell you many things about these 
curious people— how they prayed to the sun and 
the moon instead of to God; of the wonderful 
temples and palaces that they built; of their 
fine, hard roads cut through the mountains, and 
of the King's messengers, who ran along these 
roads, day and night, carrying news. I could 
tell you how all the people obeyed the Inca, 
who was King of the country; how they all 
worked for him, and how he gave thern^ food 
and clothing and houses, so that no man in all 
the land was ever hungry or thirsty or cold. 

Now when Pizarro heard of these Incas, he 
thought to himself, "I will go up to Peru and 
fight with these people, and take away from 
them all their gold and silver and jewels and all 
their cities and palaces." I think that it was 
wicked of Pizarro to want to disturb these good, 
quiet people, and it seems to me that the man 
who had been a poor swineherd should have 
been satisfied with the money he had, and could 
have left the Incas alone. 



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But Pizarro was always greedy. He got 
together a little band of soldiers and started to 
go up to Peru. I say up, because Peru was 
high up among the mountains. Pizarro thought 
that it would be easy to find Peru; but things 
did not go as he had hoped. Nobody could 
tell him where the great country lay, and there 
were no maps to show him the way. By mis- 
take, Pizarro and his little army landed on a 
lonely desert island in the Pacific Ocean. There 
were swamps and marshes on this island, and 
there was little to eat, and even the water was 
not good to drink. The men suffered from 
mosquitoes and great flies, that stung them so 
they could not sleep. And worse than all, there 
were poisonous snakes that bit the men so that 
they died. They suffered from hunger and 
thirst, and some fell sick and died. Pizarro 
sent back his ship for more men and more food, 
and I am sure he was glad when, after a few 
weeks, the white sails were seen again. The 
ship brought plenty of food ; but the Governor 
of Darien, who was jealous of Pizarro, would 
not send any more soldiers. Instead, he sent 
word by the ship to Pizarro, saying, "Pizarro, 
you must come back to Darien." 



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Now, the men were only too glad to go back. 
They had suffered enough, and they did not 
want to be bitten and starved any more — no, 
not for a hundred Perus. "We will go home," 
they said, "as our Governor says." At first the 
bold Pizarro said nothing; then with the point 
of his sword he drew a sharp line in the sand. 

"North of this line," he said, "is home; 
south of this line are Peru and glory and gold." 
And then he stepped across the line, meaning 
that /le was going to Peru, even if he had to go 
alone. The soldiers all saw that Pizarro was a 
brave man, but none of them wanted to go 
with him. "We do not wish to be killed," 
they said to themselves. At last, the pilot of 
the ship, a brave, reckless fellow, with a long 
beard, named Luiz, crossed the line. "I go," 
he said, "wherever Pizarro leads." After that 
others followed. At last there were thirteen 
men across the line who were willing to go with 
Francisco Pizarro. 

These brave men, I can tell you, had a pretty 
hard time before they reached Peru. They had 
to cross the sea on a raft, which is a very danger- 
ous thing to do. But the Indians were kind to 
them and gave them food to eat, and when they 




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got to Peru the Incas were even kinder. Now, 
Pizarro was not only greedy, but he was also 
very deceitful, and he made believe to the Incas 
that he was their friend; but all the time that 
he was taking their beautiful presents, he was 
learning about the country, so that he could 
come back in a little while with a bigger army 
and rob and murder them. 

And, in a few years, Pizarro ditJ come back 
with a big army. This time he had two hundred 
men and thirty horses and a great many guns. 
The Incas in all their lives had never seen a 
horse, and had never seen people killed with 
guns; so Pizarro knew that they would be very 
much frightened when they saw his men on 
horses, and saw the guns that killed with bullets. 
And they were afraid. Wherever Pizarro and 
his soldiers went, the Incas lost their courage. 
When they saw a man on a horse, they thought 
that it was all one animal, half man and half 
horse; and so frightened were they, that Pizarro 
came to one city that was quite empty, for all 
the people had run away in fear of the cruel 
Spaniards who were half men and half horses. 

Yet I do not think that Pizarro would have 
conquered Peru if he had fought fair. There 



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were so many soldiers among the Incas that they 
seemed to spring up everywhere; but Pizarro 
was very crafty, and he thought out a very 
clever, cruel plot. He made believe he was 
a friend to the Inca, who was the great King of 
all these people, and he invited him on a visit. 
Then when the Inca came to visit Pizarro, that 
wicked man had him arrested and cast into 
prison, and all the Indians who were with the 
Inca were killed or driven away. 

Now, the Inca was a very brave young man, 
but he did not want to be killed. He knew 
that when he was dead, his soldiers would lose 
their courage. After a while, he noticed that 
Pizarro was very greedy for gold; so he said to 
him, "If you will let me go free, Pizarro, I will 
fill up this room with gold, and it will all be 
yours." 

The greedy old Pizarro was very happy over 
this, for he always wanted gold. Now, I do 
not know why any man should want so very 
much gold, because you cannot eat it or drink 
It or wear it. But Pizarro was greedy, as greedy 
as any old man in all the world, and so he 
promised the Inca to let him go free if he filled 
up the room with gold. The Inca sent for his 



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messengers, and day after day the servants of 
the Inca came carrying great heaps of gold. 
At last, after six months, the room was almost 
filled to the ceiling; but even then the treacher- 
ous Pizarro did not keep his word. He made 
believe that the Inca was trying to raise an army 
against the Spaniards (which I think he would 
have had a right to do if he wanted to, for, after 
all, the country belonged to him and not to the 
cruel Spaniards); so, instead of letting the 
brave Inca go home, as he had promised, the 
cruel Pizarro told him he must die, and the 
very same day he had the Inca put to death. 

After that, the greedy, deceitful Pizarro got 
more gold, and more gold, and always more and 
more and more. Wherever he went he made 
the people give him money. He really ruled 
the country, although he pretended to the In- 
dians that he did not, and he ruled it very 
cruelly indeed, and every day he became richer. 

But after all, the money he got did not do 
him any good. He was now one of the richest 
men in all the world. But nobody loved him, 
and I think that in his secret heart Pizarro was 
not very happy. Every day the savage old man 
became more greedy and more wicked and more 




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cruel, until not only did the Indians fear him 
and hate him, but the Spaniards hated him even 
more. There was a man named Almagro, who 
had once been his friend; but Pizarro cheated 
him, too, and then murdered him. Well, at 
last, one day, the son of this Almagro, a young 
man named Diego, went to Pizarro's palace with 
some of his friends. "You have killed my 
father," cried Diego; "now it is your turn." 
The cruel old Pizarro, though he was seventy 
years old, fought bravely to the end; but he 
was stabbed over and over again, and at last he 
fell dead at the feet of Diego. 

And thus ended the life of the brave, wicked 
Pizarro, the swineherd who wanted a castle. 
He became one of the richest men in all the 
world and conquered a nation; yet sometimes I 
think he would have been happier if he had 
always remained till the end of his days a poor 
swineherd. 



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THE NOBLE IF/^o Became a SLAVE 

DURING all this time, while Cortez was 
fighting in Mexico and Pizarro was mak- 
ing his plans to go to Peru, there lived in Spain 
a great noble, named Cabeza de Vaca. This 
man was always talking about America. He 
could tell you about Christopher Columbus and 
his great voyages, and about Balboa and Cortez, 
and all the other Spaniards who had gone to 
America. Whenever any ship came back from 
that land, De Vaca was always anxious to hear 
all the news. 

Now, as the years went on, De Vaca thought 
that he, too, would like to go to America. He 
said to himself, "If Cortez can find gold and 
riches in that country, why cannot I?" Be- 
sides, he believed, like so many others at that 
time, that somehow or other he could find a way 
through America to the Indies. The Indies 
were supposed to be very rich, and De Vaca 
thought it was a country with more cities than 
the stars of the heavens. He had been told 
that each of these cities had more people in it 
than you could count in a year, and he also 




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thought that all these people had gold and dia- 
monds and rubies, and would give them to you 
for little glass beads. "If I only can find a 
way to this place," he said to himself, "I shall 
be the richest man in the world. I shall be as 
great as the great King." 

So, because he wished to find gold in America 
and because he wanted to find a way to another 
land which, he thought, was even richer than 
America, De Vaca sailed away to the West. 
He was not the captain of the fleet; but, being 
a rich lord, he was, of course, very important. 
West the ships sailed, until one bright day in 
Spring they landed at Tampa Bay, in Florida. 

Now, Cabeza de Vaca and the Spaniards with 
him were not the first men who had come to 
Florida. This part of the country had been 
found about sixteen years earlier by a rich 
Spaniard named Ponce de Leon; and the story 
of how Ponce de Leon came to find Florida is 
so interesting that I must tell you about it. 

Ponce de Leon was one of the brave men 
who had sailed with Columbus across the great 
ocean, and afterwards he had been made Governor 
of an island called Porto Rico. He was rich, and 
famous, and powerful; but he was not happy, 



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because he was growing old and he wanted to 
be young. 

In those days the people believed that old 
men could grow young again, just as they | : ';;• 
believed many other things that we now know 
are very foolish. One day an Indian came to 
the great Ponce de Leon and said to him, " If 
you will go to the islands of the West you will 
find there a magic fountain. Bathe your hands 
in the fountain and drink the waters, and as soon 
as you have done so, a strange thing will 
happen. Your white beard will become black; 
your dim eyes will grow clear; your weak, thin 
legs will grow strong and stout again." 

Ponce de Leon loved youth more than he loved 
money or power or anything else in the world. 
So he made up his mind to sail away on a ship 
and find the magic fountain. I do not know 
whether he wanted only to. get young himself, 
or whether he wanted all the people in the 
world to bathe, so that no one would ever grow 
old and no one would ever die. It would have 
been very strange, I think, if Ponce de Leon had 
found the fountain. There would never have 
been any old people any more, and your grand- 
father would have been as young as you are. 



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Well, there wasn't a place in all the islands 
of the West that Ponce de Leon did not visit to 
find the magic fountain. Every day the old 
man would put his hands under some little foun- 
tain, and then watch to see whether his hair 
would grow black and his legs strong again. It 
never happened, and, for one, I do not believe 
that there ever was such a magic fountain. Well, 
one Easter morning, while sailing around looking 
for islands, where the magic fountain might be 
hidden by trees. Ponce de Leon saw a beautiful 
new land, the most beautiful land he had ever 
seen. There were wonderful green palms that 
never died, and on the ground were flowers of all 
colors, red and yellow and blue and purple. 
The air was soft and warm, and high up in the 
trees the birds sang so sweetly that it almost 
made the old De Leon weep. "It is Paradise," 
he said; "here I shall surely find my youth." 

He called the country Florida, which is the 
name it still bears, and he looked everywhere 
for the magic fountain, of which he had been 
told by the Indian. But he did not find it at 
that time, nor did he find it later, though he 
came back again, with many men who wished 
to make homes in Florida. The Indians were 



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67 



THE 



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very unfriendly; they did not want the Spaniards 
to land, so there was a battle between the 
Spaniards and the Indians and De Leon was shot. 
The arrow had been dipped in poison and the 
wound got worse and worse, and in a short time 
Ponce de Leon died. 

So it happened that the old man who looked 
for youth found death instead. Yet, to-day, 
Florida is a beautiful land, where the flowers 
still grow and the birds still sing, and many 
people go there from all over our country to 
bathe in the wonderful salt water and the warm 
sunshine, and here they get health and strength, 
though, of course, they do not get what Ponce 
de Leon looked for — youth everlasting. 

Perhaps the Spanish noble, Cabeza de Vaca, 
thought of the poor Ponce de Leon when, so 
many years after, he and his companions landed 
in Florida. "What will happen to us?" he said 
to himself. "Will we find what we want, gold 
and a way to the Indies, or will we too die from 
hunger and sickness and the poisoned arrows of 
the Indians?" 

When the Spaniards landed from their ships, 
they found that the Indians were quite as 
unfriendly as they had been to Ponce de Leon. 



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So the Spanish noble, De Vaca, told the captain, 
whose name was Narvaez, that he thought it 
would be safer to stay near the ships. The 
Indians had told Narvaez that there was gold in 
the country towards the West, near the moun- 
tains. Narvaez wanted gold right away, so he 
and his men didn't listen to De Vaca, but began 
their weary march inland. 

Now, this march was much longer and harder 
and more dangerous than any of the Spaniards 
had thought when they started. There were no 
roads or even paths, and they had to cut their 
way through great forests, where the trees and 
bushes grew so thick that you could hardly tell 
where you were going. Often they lost their 
way in swamps. Their feet sank into the water, 
and they had to ask each other's help so that 
they would not sink into the swamp and die. 
The sun, too, was broiling hot, and the mos- 
quitoes and insects bit them all day and all 
night, so that often they cried out with pain and 
could not sleep. 

Besides, every day the Indians were more and 
more unfriendly. This was the Spaniards' own 
fault. They had burned some Indian chiefs, 
whom they had found in a little village, and all 



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the other Indians hated the Spaniards and thought 
them very wicked. They called them white 
devils. Now, the Indians knew of a good way 
through the swamps and the forests, but they 
would not tell the Spaniards, because of the 
Indian chiefs whom the Spaniards had burned. 
So Narvaez and De Vaca and the men who were 
with them had to fight their way through the great 
swamps. Some poor fellows died of sickness, 
and all were hungry and tired. So you can well 
believe that they were glad to reach at last a 
little Indian village. 

The Spaniards expected to find gold here, but 
there was hardly any gold in all the village. They 
did find a little corn and enough food to keep 
them from dying; but even with this they were 
little better off than before. The Indians were 
their enemies, and whenever a Spaniard walked 
away from the village he was sure to be killed 
with an arrow. Even when the Spaniards led 
their horses to water, they were shot at by the 
Indians, who were hidden behind trees. At last 
things became so bad that the Spaniards had to 
go back to their boats by the sea. It was a hard 
march. They could only get food from the 
Indians by fighting for it, and many Spaniards 




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were shot, and many others fell sick and died 
from the bad water in the swamps. They had 
to jgo on, because the Indians would kill any 
who stayed behind. So they marched, and 
marched, and marched, day after day, and day 
after day, losing men all the time, until at last 
they reached the great sea. 

But it wasn't Tampa Bay, where they had left 
their ships many weeks before, nor was the coast 
like any they had ever seen before. There was 
no life anywhere on all the great water, and there 
was no human being on all the miles of hot, 
white sand that stretched away as far as the eye 
could see. The soldiers lost their courage. 
"We shall never get home," they cried in 
despair. "We shall die on this terrible sea- 
coast," and some of the great, strong, bearded 
men threw themselves on the sands and cried as 
though their hearts would break. 

Well, after a while they picked up courage. 
No matter how bad things look, a brave man 
never gives up hope. They knew that they were 
hundreds of miles west of Tampa Bay, but they 
remembered that there were some few Spaniards 
living near the place where they were. So De 
Vaca and the others made up their minds to 



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71 




MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 



build boats in which they might sail to the other 
Spaniards. Well, it is not easy to build ships 
when you have no sails, and no tools, and no 
pitch, and no ropes; but with patience you can 
do almost anything. So the Spaniards cut down 
trees for wood, made rope out of the hair of 
their horses' tails and manes, and used their shirts 
for sails. Month after month they worked, liv- 
ing on horse-meat and shell-fish and a little corn 
which they took from the Indians. 

At last the boats were finished and they sailed 
away. Up and down the coast they went, always 
hunting for the Spaniards who lived nearby, 
and all the time things grew worse and worse 
with them. They were hungry and sick and 
frozen to the bone. For days the sun beat 
down on them, burning their skin, and then the 
cold shock gave them chills and fever. At last 
a great storm came, that drove their boats apart 
and threw them up against the rocks. 

The boat on which De Vaca sailed landed on 
a little island, and the little band of soldiers 
would surely have died of hunger if the Indians 
had not been very kind. The Indians built 
large fires for the half-drowned men, and gave 
them hot food and drink, and when some other 





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boats appeared like little specks far away in the 
distance, they threw more wood on the fires so 
that the smoke would rise in clouds and guide 
these ships also to the shore. 

Here the tired Spaniards stayed for many 
months; but most of them did not live long. 
One after another they died, until only De Vaca 
and three others were alive. These four were 
all who were left of the bold men who had 
sailed for Florida a year before. 

But the troubles of the brave De Vaca and 
his three tired men were not yet over. They 
could not stay long on the island with the good 
Indians, so one fine morning they said good-by 
to their new friends, and made their way to the 
West. It is a great wonder to me that they did 
not all die, for their troubles and dangers were 
great. Sometimes the Indians were kind to 
them, and gave them food and a place to sleep; 
but often they were very cruel, and once they 
kept De Vaca and his men locked up, and made 
them work as slaves. 

You can imagine, perhaps, how hard it was 
for Cabeza de Vaca, who was a noble and a 
great man in his own country, to have to be a 
slave in a little Indian village. In Spain there 



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were always people to wait on him, and when- 
ever he wanted anything, he called and a servant 
came to ask what he wanted. But here in the 
little Indian village, where all the people were 
half naked, he had to work in the fields and dig, 
and cut wood and carry water, and do whatever 
else his master told him. Yet, I wonder, did 
De Vaca ever think of the thousands of Indians 
who had been made slaves by the Spaniards? 
Slavery is always wrong, and it was just as wrong 
to have Indian slaves as to have black slaves, or 
white slaves, or slaves of any kind. 

So this great noble had to work for the 
Indians, but it was not for long. In a short 
time, the Indians saw that their slave was wiser 
than they were; he could teach them many 
things, and he could cure them when they were 
sick. So they were good to him and treated 
him as a chief, and after a while they let him 
and his three men go free. 

Now that De Vaca and his three men were 
free, they started on their journey again. They 
went on day after day, week after week, month 
after month, and year after year. It was six 
years, six long years, that they walked on and on 
over deserts and thick forests, crossing deadly 



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swamps and great, wide rivers. Often they had 
nothing to eat but nuts and roots, and as their 
clothes had worn out, they froze in winter and 
ahiiost burned in summer. Many a time they 
wanted to lie down and die ; but, being brave men, 
they never quite gave up hope. So they kept on. 
Then one day, through the great forest they 
caught sight of the sea, and they were so happy 
that they wept tears of joy; and here they 
found that they were among their own people 
again. For the first time in six years they saw 
white faces once more; for the first time in six 
years they heard men speaking their own beauti- 
ful language, the Spanish language, which they 
loved so dearly. 

You can well imagine how glad everybody was 
to see them. The tired but happy Cabeza de 
Vaca had to tell his story over and over again 
— all the wonderful adventures he had had since 
he landed in Tampa Bay, of the great rivers 
and swamps he had crossed, and of the suffer- 
ings he had passed through. And where do you 
think he was? He was far to the West, way 
out upon the Gulf of California, near the great 
Pacific Ocean. Cabeza de Vaca had walked 
across America. 



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75 



THE 



M E N 



WHO FOUND AMERICA 




It is true that De Vaca never found the things 
he came to America to find; for not always 
did men find gold and glory like Cortez and 
Pizarro. But De Vaca was happy and satisfied. 
When he sailed away back to his own home in 
Spain, he had no gold to take with him, but he 
was happy, happy to be with his own people 
once more, happy that he no longer had to be a 
slave to the Indians in America. 



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HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS 



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N the olden days, while the bold Columbus 
was sailing across the ocean, there lived in a 
gray, mossy castle in Spain a young lad named 
Ferdinand de Soto. This Ferdinand was a very 
lonely boy. He had no father and no mother, 
and there were no other boys with whom he 
could play. All he could do was to watch the 
birds flying in the green woods near the castle, 
and listen to their sweet songs. Sometimes, in 
the long, beautiful afternoons, he would go out 
walking with his faithful dog, or ride on top of 
his big black horse, that the boy had known and 
loved ever since he was a little baby. 

Ferdinand did not go to school. There 
weren't many schools in those days and only the 
very rich could go; and Ferdinand, though he 
lived in a castle, was very poor. But he did 
learn how to ride on a horse and how to fence 
with a sword. His servant taught him these 
things. This servant was a good, strong old 
man, with eyes as black as coal and hair and 



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beard as white as snow. Soon the young Fer- 
dinand learned so well that he could fence better 
than his teacher, and as for horses, Ferdinand 
could ride horses that the old man was afraid to 
mount. 

One day there came to the castle a very rich 
nobleman, named Don Pedro. He looked at the 
handsome young Ferdinand and was very much 
pleased with him. Ferdinand was very polite 
and had good manners, so at last Don Pedro 
said to him, "You seem like a very fine lad. 
How would you like to come to my palace and 
learn to read and write and become a great sol- 
dier like your father used to be?" "I should 
like it very much," replied the young Ferdinand. 
"I should like to learn many things and then be 
a soldier; and when I am a man I wish to go 
to America like Columbus." "Very well," said 
Don Pedro; "come with me and live in my 
palace." 

You can imagine how happy the young Fer- 
dinand was to leave the gloomy old castle to go 
with Don Pedro. And he was still happier 
when he got there; for the rich Don Pedro 
had a daughter named Isabella. This Isabella 
was as beautiful as the day and as good as she 

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was beautiful. The two children liked each 
other, and in the lonely afternoons they played 
many games while the sun cast its long shadows 
on the green grass. Ferdinand now had lessons. 
He learned to read and to write ; he went to a 
great school where they taught him many won- 
derful things, and every day he grew taller and 
stronger, until at last his birthday came around 
again and he was nineteen years old. 

Then a strange thing happened. The young 
Isabella, too, had grown up to be a beautiful girl, 
with wonderful deep gray eyes, and red lips that 
curved like a bow, and her hair was as black 
as the darkest night. Ferdinand loved Isabella 
very tenderly, and Isabella loved Ferdinand, and 
they wanted to marry and live happily ever after- 
wards. But Don Pedro was away in America 
and they had to wait until he came back. 

At last Don Pedro came home, and Ferdinand 
went up to him and said, "Don Pedro, you have 
been very good to me. You have brought me 
up like your own son. Now I am a man and 
I love your daughter, Isabella. May I have her 
as my wife?" 

Now, Don Pedro was a greedy man, and he 
wanted his daughter to marry a great, rich lord, 



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and not a poor young boy like Ferdinand. So 
he said, "No, I will not let you marry my 
daughter. You have taken my food, but you 
may not take my child." So Ferdinand was 
sad and did not know what to do, for he loved 
Isabella very dearly ; but he could not marry her 
against her father's wishes. 

Then Don Pedro thought of a very clever 
plan. He said to himself, "If the young Fer- 
dinand and the young Isabella live here in my 
castle, their love will grow until it knows no 
bounds; and perhaps some day when I am 
away serving my King, these young people will 
get married. That will never do. But if I can 
get Ferdinand away, then Isabella will forget 
him, and will marry a great, rich lord and live 
in a beautiful, big castle." 

So the clever Don Pedro said to Ferdinand, 
"You have always wanted to be a soldier and go 
to America like the great Christopher Columbus. 
Now is your time. You are a man, and can 
gain honor and gold for yourself, and new coun- 
tries for your King. You must not think of 
Isabella; you must think of America." 

The words of the clever Don Pedro moved 
the heart of the brave young lad. "You are 




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80 



HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS 



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right, Don Pedro," he answered; "I will go to 
America." 

I think that Ferdinand must have been very 
sad when he had spoken these words; for little 
did he know whether, in all his life, he would 
ever again look upon the sweet, beautiful face of 
Isabella. Perhaps on his way to America the 
little ship would strike a rock or go down in a 
storm, and Ferdinand would be drowned. Or 
perhaps the Indians would kill him, or he would 
die of a fever, or would be cast into prison, with 
nothing to eat or drink but bread and water, 
and the rats would squeak, and the day would be 
as dark as the night. Perhaps he would be 
thrown into such a prison by some wicked man 
and never be set free again. And even if he 
came back after many hard years and many great 
perils, he might find that Isabella had married 
and forgotten all about him; so you may well 
believe that Ferdinand, brave young man as he 
was, wept bitter tears when he said good-by to 
the fair Isabella. 

And yet Ferdinand was anxious to go. All 
the brave young Spaniards wanted to go to 
America to fight the Indians, to teach them 
about God, to find gold for themselves and new 



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countries for the King. Every now and then 
some young man would come back from 
America with gold, and silver, and pearls, and 
rubies, and beautiful, wonderful birds, and 
strange things that no man had ever set eyes on 
before ; and many were the stories about the red 
men who lived in the beautiful land of America. 

Well, at last the ship was ready and Ferdinand 
sailed away, and for fifteen long years he stayed 
in America. I cannot begin to tell you of all 
the wonderful sights he saw there, or of the 
many bold deeds that he did. Of all the brave 
men who had gone to America, none was braver 
than Ferdinand de Soto. After a while he met 
the Spanish General, Pizarro, who was going to 
Peru to conquer that country, Pizarro told De 
Soto about Peru and the Incas, of their wonder- 
ful temples and palaces, and how rich they were 
with all their gold and silver. "I am going to 
Peru to conquer that country," he said to De 
Soto, "and I want you to come with me because 
you are such a brave man." 

Now, when Pizarro said these words to De 
Soto and told him of all the dangers he would 
meet in that new land, the young Ferdinand was 
not afraid. He loved danger as he loved the 



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HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS 



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beautiful Isabella whom he had left in Spain. 
"I will go with you, Pizarro," said Ferdinand, 
"and I will be a brave and true soldier." And 
so, during all that great war against the Incas of 
Peru, Ferdinand fought bravely by the side of 
Pizarro, the wisest and the bravest of all the men 
in that army. 

When Peru was conquered, and after many 
other great adventures, Ferdinand returned to 
Spain. Fifteen years had passed since he had 
left. Now he was no longer a poor boy, but a 
rich and powerful man, and everybody respected 
him because of his wise words and brave deeds. 
You may be sure that Ferdinand was very happy 
to see once more the beautiful country in which 
he was born. However much you may travel, 
you are always happy when at last you come back 
to your own home. So it was with Ferdinand, 
He almost cried with joy when he saw again 
the old, mossy castle where he had played as a 
boy. There were the same old trees, the same 
long, dusty road where he used to ride upon his 
great black horse; but most happy of all was 
Ferdinand when he saw again the beautiful 
Isabella. She was more lovely than ever. Her 
father, the clever Don Pedro, was now dead, and 



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during all of these long years the beautiful g^^ 
Isabella had loved the young Ferdinand. She 
had been very sad because Ferdinand was away, 
but she never forgot him; and when the great 
lords of Spain had come to her and asked her 
to marry them, she always shook her head 
and spoke sadly. "No, my good lord," she 
answered; "I love the young Ferdinand de Soto 
who fights for his King in the land of America. 
I shall wait until he comes for me." 

So they were married, and all the great lords 
and ladies who were invited to the wedding said 
they had never seen so handsome a couple. 
There were plenty of cakes and wine for all the 
people who came, and there was a table where 
the poor could sit down and eat as much as they 
wished. Everybody laughed and cried for joy. 
Then Ferdinand took his beautiful wife to a great 
palace in Seville, and there they lived so happily 
that the days flew by like minutes, and even the 
King envied them because they were so happy. 

The brave Ferdinand was very good to his 
beautiful wife. He bought for her all that her 
heart could desire. So it happened that he 
spent all the gold and silver that he had brought 
with him from America. Then, one day, Fer- 




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HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS 

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dinand said to his wife, "I shall go to America 
again to bring you more gold and more silver 
and all the beautiful things that are found in 
that country." Ferdinand said this to make his 
wife happy; but the beautiful Isabella was not 
happy. "I was so sad when you went away the 
last time," she said, " I cannot bear to have you 
leave me again. Let me, I pray you, go with 
you and share your dangers." 

So the good Ferdinand de Soto kissed his 
brave wife and told her she might go with him; 
and many young lords of Spain wanted to go also. 
They all knew how bold and true and wise Fer- 
dinand was; so the ships were filled with young 
nobles, all dressed in bright-colored clothes. 
After a long journey, the ships came to the 
island of Hispaniola, where there were many 
Spaniards. Here Ferdinand told Isabella to 
wait for him. "There are many dangers where 
I go," he said; " but soon I will come back with 
gold and silver and all that the heart can desire." 
Little did Ferdinand know when he kissed his 
wife good-by that he would never again see her 
in all this world. Boldly he sailed to the land 
of Florida. Here he found many wonderful 
things, but nowhere did he find the great mines 




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of gold and silver that Cortez had seen in 
Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. The Indians told 
him that gold and silver could be found in the 
great wild country to the West; so Ferdinand 
and his little army marched toward the West. 
Every day they moved further and further away 
from their home, and further and further away 
from the lonely Isabella, who waited on the 
island. Everywhere they looked for gold, but 
the Indians always pointed toward the West, 
where the sun sets. Always they said to the 
Spaniards, " Go West; go far West into the wild, 
wild country and there you will find gold." 

In their long, hard march, the brave Ferdi- 
nand de Soto and his little army had many adven- 
tures. Sometimes the Indians were friendly and 
would sit down with the white men about the 
fire and smoke their long pipes. This was a 
sign among the Indians to show that they were 
friends with the white men. But sometimes the 
Indians were not friendly and fought with the 
Spaniards. I do not blame these Indians for 
fighting with De Soto. Before De Soto had 
come to this land, there had been other Spaniards 
there, and these men had been very, very cruel. 
They had killed many Indians and thrown their 



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pretty little babies into the river, and one day 
they took the Indian chief and cut his nose off. 
Some of the Indians thought that all Spaniards 
were cruel and wicked, and so they fought 
against De Soto and killed many of his men. 

Then other misfortunes befell De Soto. There 
were many great rivers to cross and there were 
no boats; so De Soto made canoes out of the 
trunks of trees and moved his little band of 
soldiers over on these. But sometimes the boats 
were unsafe, and horses and men were drowned. 
Then, too, many of the men died of fever 
because they had to go through great swamps, 
where no white men had ever been before, and 
where you sank into the ground up to your 
waist. Sometimes there was not enough food, 
and many of the men grew sick and died; 
so the soldiers grew afraid and begged to be 
taken home. But the bold De Soto said, "No; 
we are all brave men and we must never turn 
back." 

Then there happened one of the greatest 
things in all the world. De Soto had come to 
America to find gold and he did not find it; 
but he found what was much greater, a mighty 
river. This river was the greatest in all 



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America. It was so large and great that the 
Indians called it the Mississippi, which means 
in their language the Father of Waters. This 
river has become the great water way of 
America; cities have grown upon it, boats have 
gone up and down its wide waters, and more 
good has come from it than from many barrels 
of gold. And it was Ferdinand de Soto who 
first found this river, who first came to the 
Father of Waters. 

When De Soto saw this Mississippi River, 
there were no boats on it and no cities near it. 
It was just a great, wide river, gleaming in the 
sun, stretching out its wide arms toward the 
north and the south. But De Soto was happy. 
He loved the river as he loved the beautiful 
Isabella, who waited for him so many, many 
miles away. And now Ferdinand was willing 
to turn back. The Indians were not at all 
friendly, and his army was very little and very 
weak. Many of the soldiers were sick from 
the fever; so sadly De Soto turned his back on 
the great river and started his march home. 

But before he had gone many miles, the great 
Ferdinand de Soto fell sick. Every day he 
grew worse, and every day he longed to see his 



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HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS 






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beautiful Isabella and the wonderful Mississippi 
River that he had found. But the fever grew 
worse and worse, and at last the brave Ferdinand 
de Soto died. 

The sad soldiers buried him in the forest and 
then started homewards. But before they had 
gone many steps, one of the soldiers, who was 
very clever, thought of a plan. "If the Indians 
find De Soto's grave," he said, "they will know 
that our brave leader is dead. Then they will 
no longer fear to attack us. Therefore, let us 
bury him in the great river that he loved so well, 
so that no man can find his grave." And this 
they did. They took up his body and put it 
into the hollow of a great, heavy tree, and in 
the dead of night they placed it in the river and 
let it sink. This was almost four hundred years 
ago. Yet, perhaps, even to-day, at the bottom of 
the great Mississippi River, there lies the body 
of the brave Ferdinand de Soto, who, among 
all white men, was the first to come to the Father 
of Waters. 



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The BOY WHO LOVED the SEA 

MORE than three hundred years ago, in a 
little town on the shores of the sea, there 
lived an English lad whose name was Walter 
Raleigh. This Walter was a very bright, happy 
boy, active and brave. He loved all kinds of 
sports. He loved to run and fight and play. 
He loved to breathe in the cool, fresh air, as 
every evening he ran along the lonely country 
roads; but most of all he loved the sea. Every 
day the young Walter could be found in the 
blue water, swimming near the shore, or rowing 
in a boat, or sailing before the wind. He loved 
the sea, and was not afraid of it, even in the 
stormiest weather. 

Now, Walter was not the only English boy 
who loved the sea. All the little English lads 
loved it. The English at this time did not live 
in great cities as they do to-day. Many of them, 
like Walter Raleigh, lived in little towns and 
villages right on the shores of the sea. They 
could look at the water every day when it was 
blue and quiet and the sky was clear, and also 
when the sea was rough and angry and storms 



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broke out from the clouds overhead. There 
were many bold fishermen in those days, and 
these fishermen would sometimes take the little 
lads out with them in their boats; and so it 
happened that at this time many of the English 
boys knew a great deal about the sea and became 
good sailors. 

The young Walter used to listen to long 
stories about the great English sailors who were 
taking their ships to all the seas ; but the stories 
he loved most to hear were of two brave young 
Englishmen, named Francis Drake and John 
Hawkins. These sailors hated the Spaniards, 
who were then the strongest and most cruel 
people in the world. So these brave English 
sailors used to fight against the cruel Spaniards 
and lay in wait to capture their vessels and all 
the gold and silver that was in them. Some- 
times I think the English sailors were just as 
cruel as the Spaniards with whom they fought; 
but they were very brave, these English sailors 
were, and when the young Walter heard about 
them, he, too, wanted to go to sea and fight the ^ 
Spaniards and take their gold. 

But the time had not yet come. The young 
Walter was only fourteen years old, and he had 









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much yet to learn. A boy should learn many 
things before he becomes a man. So the young 
Walter was sent to the great University of 
Oxford, where he was taught a great many things. 
He used to study out of big books, that were so 
heavy that a boy could hardly carry them. It 
was a very beautiful place, this Oxford, and 
Walter met there many lads from all over Eng- 
land. They told him wonderful stories about 
the great men of England, the soldiers and 
sailors, the poets and the great lords who lived 
in London and saw the Queen every day, and 
helped to rule the kingdom. Walter longed to 
grow up to be a lord, so he, too, could see the 
Queen and help to rule the kingdom. 

Now, Walter loved to study; but, more than 
anything else, he wanted to go out into the great 
world and be a man. So at seventeen he left 
the beautiful school at Oxford and went to 
France, where a great war was going on. He 
fought for six years, doing many brave acts and 
becoming a great soldier. Then he went to 
Holland and helped the people of that country 
to fight against the Spaniards; and everywhere 
he went the people loved him, because he was 
so brave and handsome and witty. 



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But Raleigh loved the sea even more than he 
loved fighting, and when he was twenty-six years 
of age, he left the army and went on a ship to 
America. He wanted to go to Newfoundland, 
which is an island many miles north of this 
country, because he thought he could sail 
further and find a river or strait that would 
lead right through America to the Pacific Ocean. 
If he could find such a river or strait, then he 
could sail right through America to the Indies, 
and do what Columbus tried to do so many 
years before. 

Well, there isn't any such strait in all 
America, and so Raleigh never could have found 
it; but he did not even get the chance. The 
Spaniards saw his little vessels and sailed after 
him, and he lost one of his ships and his other 
ships were damaged; so the brave Raleigh had 
to come home again. 

Then there happened a little thing that made 
Walter Raleigh the most famous man in all 
England. One day, while he was in London, 
he saw the Queen walking along the street. 
Now the Queen, whose name was Elizabeth, was 
very proud and very fond of clothes. She had 
over a thousand dresses, and many of these 




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were embroidered with beautiful jewels. I do 
not know how many shoes and slippers and 
silk stockings she had, but I do know that she 
had very many. Now, just as Walter looked 
up, he saw that the Queen stopped in front of a 
muddy place in the street. She did not want to 
get her new shoes wet. The great lords who 
were with the Queen looked worried. They 
did not know what to do; but young Walter 
sprang forward, took off his handsome cloak, 
the most beautiful cloak he had, and, kneeling 
down before the queen, spread the cloak on the 
muddy spot in the road, so that she could walk 
on without getting her shoes dirty. 

Well, the Queen was very much pleased. She 
smiled at the handsome young man at her feet, 
and, telling him to rise, asked, "What is your 
name, young man?" "May it please your 
majesty," he replied, bowing very low, "my 
name is Walter Raleigh." "Well, Master 
Raleigh," replied the Queen, "you have done a 
very gracious act. Ask of me what you will 
and you may have it." 

Now, this was the way in which queens spoke 
in those days when they were pleased with any- 
thing you did; and sometimes the man would 





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THE BOY 



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ask for a suit of armor, and sometimes for a 
horse, and sometimes for a hundred pieces of 
gold. But Walter Raleigh asked for none of 
these. 

"May it please your majesty," he said, "if I 
may have anything I wish, then I ask for the 
cloak upon which your majesty has just deigned 
to step." By this he meant that it was a great 
honor for the Queen to walk on his cloak. 

Now, Queen Elizabeth was very much sur- 
prised. 

"Why, Master Raleigh," she answered, "the 
cloak is not mine to give; it is yours and has 
always been yours." 

"Not so," replied Walter Raleigh; "not so, 
your majesty. The cloak was mine until your 
royal foot touched it, but in that moment it 
became yours. And this is what I ask of your 
majesty, that you give to me my cloak that I 
may always look on it and remember this day." 

So the Queen gave Raleigh his cloak, but she 
gave him many other things besides. She made 
him a knight, which was something that all men 
wanted to be, and she let him have lands and 
gold and many beautiful things. She made it a 
law that no man in all England could sell 



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THE 



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WHO FOUND AMERICA 







broadcloth or wines except only Walter Raleigh, 
which made the young man even richer than 
before. 

Those were good days for Walter Raleigh, or, 
as he was now called. Sir Walter Raleigh. He 
was the greatest man in all England. His 
clothes were the finest in the kingdom. Even 
the band around his hat had pearls on it, and he 
wore diamonds and rubies and beautiful feathers, 
and the white ribbons that tied his shoes had 
beautiful, gleaming jewels sewed all over them. 
He even had a suit of armor that was made all 
of silver. Indeed, he had so many things that 
I cannot remember them all. 

Of course, Raleigh loved to be a great lord 
among the English and help to rule the king- 
dom, but he loved the sea even more. "Now, 
that I am rich," he said, "I wish to buy ships 
and sail to America. There I can find a new 
land for England, and in after years English- 
men will bless the name of Walter Raleigh." 

So Sir Walter Raleigh went to the Queen and 
told her of his plan. "Yes," said the Queen, 
"I shall be glad if you send your ships to 
America and find new lands for England ; but 
you cannot go yourself, Sir Walter. I want you 



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"Walter sprang forward and spread his ha 



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THE BOY WHO LOVED THE 



SEA 




to stay in England and help me rule the king- 
dom." She said this because she was very fond 
of Sir Walter, and was afraid he might die on 
the long journey, or be killed by the Indians in 
America. Now, the Queen's words made Sir 
Walter very sad. He wanted to go with the 
ships to the new land, because ever since he was 
a little boy he had loved the sea; but he had 
to do as the Queen said, so the ships sailed 
without him. 

Now these ships went to America and came 
home again. The sailors brought back with 
them a string of white, gleaming pearls, skins of 
strange animals, and two Indians, to show Eng- 
lishmen what red men looked like. They told 
Sir Walter wonderful stories of the beauty of 
the country, and when Sir Walter heard the 
stories of the sailors, he wanted to go to this 
new land more than ever; so the next year he 
sent out more ships. Now, on these second 
ships went one hundred brave men, who, when 
they saw the new land, called it Virginia. The 
Indians told Ralph Lane, the Governor of this 
colony, many strange stories. They told him 
of a beautiful city, back in the forest, where the 
walls were made of pearl, and where there was 



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97 



T HE 



MEN 



WHO 



FOUND AM ERIC 






gold and silver in the streets. Now, we know 
that there was no such city; but the Governor 
believed the Indians, and instead of planting 
corn for the winter, he and his men searched 
and searched for the walls of pearl. Everything 
went badly with the little colony. There was 
not enough food to eat, and many of the men 
starved to death. The Indians, too, became 
unfriendly, though at first they had been very 
kind to the white men. I will tell you why 
they changed. One day an Indian stole a silver 
cup from an Englishman, and instead of punish- 
ing the thief, the white men burned all the corn 
that all the Indians had planted, and set fire to 
all their houses, till the whole village was in 
ashes; so the poor Indians had nothing to eat, 
and no place to sleep, and I, for one, don't 
blame them for not being friendly to the white 
men. 

Every day things grew worse, and at last the 
little band of Englishmen went back to their own 
country. They had not found gold or silver, 
but they had found what was much better, 
tobacco, potatoes and corn. These things had 
never been known in England before, though 
to-day all the people in Europe use them just 





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THE BOY WHO LOVED THE SEA 




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as the Americans do. Sir Walter himself liked 
tobacco very much, and, being a grown man, he 
used to smoke every day out of a great, long 
pipe. One day a very funny thing happened. 
He had hired a new servant, a man who had 
never seen tobacco in all his life. Sir Walter 
sent him out to bring in a great pitcher of beer, 
and when he came back he saw smoke coming 
out of his master's mouth and nose, and he 
thought that he must be on fire. So what do 
you think he did? He poured the pitcher of 
beer over Sir Walter's head to put out the fire. 
Of course the fire did not go out, but all of Sir 
Walter's clothes were spoiled; but Sir Walter 
had more clothes, and so he only laughed. 

The ships which Sir Walter had sent to 
America all came back, but he did not lose hope, 
and after a while he sent out a third colony to 
the new land. In this colony there were one 
hundred and fifty men, seventeen women, and 
eleven little children, and Captain John White 
was their Governor. But the people of this 
colony, too, were cruel to the Indians, and so, 
of course, the Indians were unfriendly to them. 

After a little while all their food gave out, and 
as the Indians would not give them corn, they 



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WHO FOUND AMERICA 




asked Captain White to go to England and come 
back with more food. Now, Captain White did 
not want to go on this long journey. His little 
granddaughter, the first English child ever born 
in America, was only a few weeks old, and Cap- 
tain White didn't wish to leave her; but if he 
did not go back, the people would die of hun- 
ger. So one fine day he set sail for England. 

Now, at this time, there was a great war 
going on in England against the Spaniards, and 
all English ships had to be used in the fight; 
so Captain White's vessels were taken from him, 
and he could not go back to his little grand- 
daughter, Virginia Dare, nor to the men and 
women and children he had left in Virginia. It 
was three years before he could get ships to cross 
the great ocean, and when he did make the long 
journey, the people he had left so long ago had 
all been lost. What became of them no man 
ever knew. Perhaps they died of hunger or 
were killed by the Indians. It was all so many, 
many years ago, and the people that were alive 
then are now all dead; so we shall never know 
what did become of the little band whom Sir 
Walter Raleigh sent to America, or of the dear 
little baby, Virginia Dare. 



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After a few years, Raleigh, who still loved the 
sea, got the Queen to let him leave England. 
This made him very happy, and, buying some 
ships, he sailed across the ocean to South 
America. Here he landed in a country called 
Guiana, not a rich country, but where there were 
many Indians. Of course, these Indians told 
him wonderful stories, and, of course, these 
stories were not true. A tribe of Indians, they 
said, who lived up the river, were so rich that 
they sprinkled gold dust on their bodies; and 
back in the forest were other tribes who had 
eyes in their shoulders and mouths in their chests. 
Raleigh believed these foolish stories, because in 
those days people were not so wise as they are 
to-day, and so he sailed up the great river in 
search of these riches. 

Well, as there was no gold or wonderful city, 
of course, Sir Walter Raleigh could not find 
them, though he hunted a long time, and so, 
after a few months, he went back to England a 
very sad man. 

Now, as Sir Walter Raleigh grew older, this 
is what happened. Queen Elizabeth, as queens 
sometimes do, grew tired of her friend, and one 
day poor Sir Walter was thrown into prison. 




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101 



THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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Of course, the Queen let him out again, but, by 
this time, everyone had turned against him. 
Now, many men hated Sir Walter because of 
his great pride; so, when Queen Elizabeth died, 
and a new King, King James, ruled over Eng- 
land, the King heard many stories against Sir 
Walter. He believed these stories, and so, for 
the second time. Sir Walter was put in prison. 
Here he stayed for twelve sad years. That 
was a long time to stay in prison; but, I sup- 
pose. Sir Walter would have been there even 
longer had he not thought of a plan by which 
to get out. 

You see, Sir Walter knew that King James 
was very fond of gold; so he sent a man to 
the King to say, "In South America is much 
gold. If your majesty will let me out of prison, 
I will go to that country, and after a short time 
will return to England with my ships full of 
gold." This plan pleased King James very 
much, so he let Sir Walter out of prison, and 
gave him ships, and sent him to South America. 

But we cannot always do what we promise 
to do; and though Sir Walter tried very hard, he 
could not find any gold in South America. 
Instead, he became very sick, and some great 







102 



THE BOY WHO LOVED THE SEA 




^:^ 



Spanish vessels, seeing how small his ships 
were, chased him, and forced him to return 
home. Poor Sir Walter Raleigh! — you may well 
believe that he was sad at the thought of meet- 
ing his angry King. 

And the King was angry when he found that 
Sir Walter had not brought the promised gold. 
He threw him into prison, and then a little later 
ordered his head to be cut off. By this you see 
how very angry the King was. 

Now, Sir Walter was always brave. He was 
brave as a little boy, brave as a soldier, and brave 
when he came to die. Touching the edge of 
the axe that was to cut off his head, he said, 
"This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for 
all diseases." By this he meant that after death 
his troubles would all be over. 

And so they were. Though the cruel King 
James cut off the head of this brave man, he 
could not make people forget him. Even to-day 
we remember Sir Walter Raleigh. We have a 
city named Raleigh in memory of him, and in 
all parts of our country the children are told of 
the brave little English boy who loved the sea. 



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103 



THE 



MEN 



WHO FOUND AMERICA 






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THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS 
OF THE FOREST 

THIS is the story of a princess — -not a fairy 
princess with golden locks and long, silken 
gowns, but a real princess. Tou might have 
called her a savage if you had seen her running 
barefooted about in the forest, because she was 
just a little, black-haired Indian girl, who played 
with other little Indians in the woods of Vir- 
ginia. Yet this little girl was a princess and 
her father was a king. 

Now, the name of this princess was Pocahon- 
tas. It is a large name for such a little girl; 
and yet, though it is three hundred years since she 
lived, no one has forgotten her name. No one 
has forgotten the story of the beautiful red prin- 
cess who lived in Virginia, and this is the 
reason why: 

In those days Virginia was very different from 
what it is to-day. There were no cities, and rail- 
roads, and houses, and street cars; no theatres, 
or parks, or schools. There were no white 
people there at all. It was all a wild country, 



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THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST 



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with great rivers, and forests where no roads led, 
and all the people — the men and women, the 
little boys and girls, even the tiny, dear little 
babies — were Indians. 

Well, as the years went on, little Pocahontas 
had her twelfth birthday. She was so beautiful, 
and so very good and kind, that all the Indians 
loved her. The women embroidered her skirts 
with bright-colored porcupine quills, and with 
feathers and beads, and the men brought her 
presents of beautiful birds and little gray squir- 
rels which they trapped in the forest. But the 
King, her father, loved her most. Whenever he 
came back from a journey, his first question was 
always, "Where is Pocahontas?" And then he 
patted her on the head and gave her some shells 
which the Indians used for money. There was 
nothing in the world that the King would not 
do for his little daughter. 

Now, Pocahontas had never seen a white man. 
She thought that all men were red like her 
father and the other brave Indians with whom 
she lived. You see, there never had been any 
white men in her part of the country. The 
brave, cruel Spaniards had gone to Cuba and 
Florida and Mexico and countries to the south, 



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and the French explorers, who were very brave 
too, had gone north to Canada and to the great 
St. Lawrence River. The English, to be sure, 
had sent men to Virginia, but they had only 
looked around the coast and had not gone into 
the forest. So Pocahontas and her father, King 
Powhatan, had never seen a white man in all 
their lives. 

But one day the soldiers of the King brought 
into the village a prisoner, whose hands and feet 
were tied with thongs. This prisoner was a tall 
man, with light hair and blue eyes, and, what 
was even more wonderful, with skin as white as 
milk. The Indians shook their tomahawks in 
front of his face, and made a motion with their 
long knives as though they were going to cut off 
his head, but the man only laughed and he did 
not show any fear. Now, the Indians like a 
brave man, and when their prisoner laughed at 
their knives, they thought he must be a very 
brave man indeed. And little Pocahontas, who 
was watching from the door of her father's wig- 
wam, which is the Indian name for a little tent, 
thought him brave too. She liked this white 
man, who was not afraid of the tomahawks of 
the bravest warriors, and she was sorry when she 



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saw how the thongs of deer-skin, with which he 
was bound, cut into his white skin; so she 
asked her father to have the Indians unbind their 
prisoner, and this they did. 

Now, the name of this white man who laughed 
at the tomahawks was Captain John Smith. He 
was one of the bravest of all the brave English- 
men who came to America so long ago. He 
had been a soldier in England, and when he was 
very young had gone to fight against the Turks, 
who were making war on the Christians. The 
young John Smith was so very brave in this war 
that when the English wanted men to win the 
new country of Virginia for their good King 
James, they chose him for their captain. 

I do not think that anybody ever had more 
trouble or ran into more danger than did this 
brave gentleman. It was not easy to cross the 
ocean in those days. The little sail-boats were 
often wrecked, and then there were cruel pirates 
who would catch sailors and throw them into 
the sea. And even when John Smith and his 
little band of men sailed up the James River in 
Virginia, and made the new city of Jamestown, 
their troubles were not over. They did not have 
enough to eat, and it was hard to get any food 



(0^ 




THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 





from the unfriendly Indians. Besides, the men 
who had come with Captain Smith were not 
used to work. They wanted to find gold and 
silver and become rich right away, and they did 
not want to plant corn, and build houses, and 
barns, and forts. 

So you may well believe that Captain Smith 
had enough trouble. When his people did not 
have food and were hungry, and when some of 
them fell sick and died, as they did, then they 
all complained. They even cried to go home 
to England. They had much trouble with the 
Indians, too; and at last, as I told you before, 
Captain John Smith and some of his men were 
captured, and Smith was bound and taken to 
King Powhatan's village. So you can well 
believe that poor John Smith was very happy 
when, to please Pocahontas, the King ordered 
him to be untied. 

Now, the Indians were curious to know all 
about the white men. They spent long hours 
in front of their wigwams listening to the 
strange stories of Captain Smith. He wrote a 
few words on a sheet of paper, and when the 
Indians saw how the white men in Jamestown 
could read these little black marks on the paper, 



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THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST 









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they were filled with wonder, for the Indians 
had no schools, and could not read or write. 
"It is strange," they said, "our prisoner can 
talk to a man a hundred miles away. He must 
be a great chief and a friend of the gods." 
Then Captain Smith showed the Indians his 
compass. He told them that with this little 
needle he could never be lost in the forest ; even 
where the woods were dense, he could find his 
way back to the camp-fire. Now, you and I 
know that the needle of a compass points always 
to the north; but the Indians did not know this, 
and they thought it was magic that told Captain 
John Smith the way. So they grew afraid of 
this white man; but Pocahontas was not afraid. 
The days passed, till one morning the King, 
Powhatan, called his warriors together to see 
what they wished to do with their captive. They 
all sat around a great camp-fire, and each man 
smoked his long pipe. Pocahontas was not 
there, because no woman was allowed at these 
meetings; but you may be sure that she was 
very anxious to hear what they would do with 
the white man. After a while, one of the Indian 
chiefs — he was a very old man, with a great scar 
running across his forehead — spoke: 



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109 



THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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"I know it is the custom of our tribe, oh, 
King Powhatan, to kill the men who are taken 
in battle; but this man is not like other men. 
He is brave; he can talk to his friends a hundred 
miles away; he speaks with magic to the stars. 
So I say send him back to his people." 

When the man with the scar had finished 
speaking, there was a low murmur, which showed 
that many of the Indians were pleased. But 
there were others who did not like Captain 
Smith and were afraid to keep him alive. A 
little old man, who was very thin, and had a 
very squeaky voice, arose and spoke: 

"Oh, King Powhatan, it is not safe to let this 
man live. He is the friend of the devils, or 
how else could he talk with the stars, or by little 
marks speak to his friends a hundred miles away? 
Besides, it is the custom of our tribe that we 
kill all prisoners. Therefore, I say, oh, King, 
let the white man die." 

And so it was agreed. I think that in his 
heart the good King Powhatan would have liked 
to save Captain Smith, but he would not go 
against the wishes of his chiefs. You may well 
believe that Pocahontas was very sad when she 
heard that her friend must die. During the 



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THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST 










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long summer days, when he had been a prisoner 
in the village, she had grown very fond of him. 
He had told her wonderful stories of England, 
the great country across the sea, and of the 
little white boys and girls who lived there, and 
of the schools they went to and the games they 
played; and now the man who had been so 
kind to her must die a cruel death, far from the 
country he loved. 

All day she walked in the forest, trying to 
think of some plan by which she could save his 
life; but when night came and she returned 
sadly to camp, she had not yet thought of a plan. 
Now, as she neared the village, she met a young 
brave dressed in his war-paint. "Hurry, oh 
Princess," he said, "for the white man is to die 
at sundown." 

Poor Pocahontas! She ran even faster than 
the young brave, and reached her father's wig- 
wam just in time to see John Smith, bound 
hand and foot, stretched on the ground, his head 
resting on a big, flat stone. All the Indians 
made way for the Princess as she pushed her way 
to the front, and then, as a warrior raised a 
great club to dash out the Englishman's brains, 
she fell on her knees and threw her arms around 



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THE MEN WHO FOUND AME RICA 



mon^ 



his neck. If the club fell on Captain Smith, it 
must kill her too. From her knees she begged 
her father, the King, to give to her the life of 
the white man. 

Powhatan and all the Indian chiefs loved a 
brave act. They looked at the little girl kneel- 
ing before them, ready to die to save her white 
friend. So the King said, " Let the white man 
go free." And the Indians all grunted, which 
meant that they, too, were really glad. 

So John Smith rose from the ground a free 
man, and was sent with twelve Indians back to 
Jamestown. But this was not the only time that 
the little Red Princess saved the life of her 
friend. The Jamestown settlement was in dan- 
ger of attacks by bad Indians, and more than 
once Pocahontas came through the great forest 
at night to warn Captain Smith that his enemies 
were coming. Then, too, she asked her father, 
the King, to give corn to the English, and often 
the little village would have starved but for the 
Little Red Princess of the Forest, who sent them 



corn. 



One day, when Pocahontas came to James- 
town, she found that Captain Smith had gone 
back to England to be cured of a wound. This 



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THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST 






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made her very sad, but she still went often to 
Jamestown to hear news of her friend. At last 
one day she was told that he was dead. After 
that the Little Red Princess stayed in the forest. 
She did not go then very often to the English vil- 
lage, though she still sent presents of corn to 
the white people. 

But John Smith was not dead, and Pocahon- 
tas was to meet her good friend once more. 
Not in the great, silent forests was she to see 
him, nor yet in the little city of Jamestown, but 
in England, far across the sea. And this is how 
the Little Red Princess of the Forest happened 
to go to England. 

In the village of Jamestown there lived a 
young Englishman named John Rolfe. Now 
Rolfe was not a prince, and in stories only the 
prince can marry the princess; but a real red 
princess is different from a fairy one, and so, 
after some years, Pocahontas and John Rolfe 
were married. 

The wedding was in the little church at 
Jamestown, because Pocahontas had become a 
Christian, and you may well believe that all the 
good Indians came to see their beautiful prin- 
cess married. 



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WHO FOUND A M E R I C 




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Well, after some time, John Rolfe and his 
young wife crossed the ocean to England, and 
thus it was that in the great city of London 
Pocahontas met her old friend, John Smith, once 
more. You may well believe that she was glad 
to see him again after so many years, and that 
they had many happy times together. It soon 
happened that everyone in London was talking 
about Pocahontas. The London people had 
never seen a red princess before, especially a 
princess who had done so many brave deeds, and 
saved the lives of so many Englishmen. So all 
London wished to honor her. The King and 
the Queen sent for Pocahontas, and she was often 
at their court, where all the great lords and 
ladies loved her and gave her beautiful presents. 

But at last the time came for John Rolfe to 
go back to Jamestown. Pocahontas was very 
sad at the thought of leaving England and all 
her kind English friends, and she was sad, too, 
because her little son, who had been born in 
England, must take the long, rough journey. 
But their plans were all made, and the good ship 
was ready to sail. 

Then it was, at the last moment, that poor 
Pocahontas was taken ill. All the great doctors 



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of London came to see her, but their medicines 
were of no use, and, after a few days of suffer- 
ing, she died. John Rolfe buried her in Eng- 
land, among the white people there; but I like 
to think of her best in the great, silent woods of 
Virginia, where, for so long, she had lived with 
her Indian tribe, and where she was called Poca- 
hontas, the Little Red Princess of the Forest. 









THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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THE ENGLISHMAN WHO 
SAILED FOR THE DUTCH 

'HIS is the story of the man who started 
New York, the greatest city in all America. 
It all happened three hundred years ago, at a 
time when Sir Walter Raleigh was still in prison, 
and when the Little Red Princess of the Forest, 
way down in Virginia, was saving the life of 
Captain John Smith. And this is the way it 
happened: 

In a little English village there lived a boy 
named Henry Hudson. This boy, like so many 
other English lads, loved the sea, and he always 
wanted to be a sailor. There were many games 
that Henry could play, but he was never really 
happy except when he was out on the ocean 
sailing his boat, and learning how to keep it 
safe in the wind and storm. He used to watch 
the rough fishermen as they steered their boats 
and cared for their sails in the rough weather, 
and soon there was nothing about a boat that the 
young Henry did not know just as well as a 
man. 



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THE ENGLISHMAN WHO SAILED FOR THE DUTCH 





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Well, while Henry was still a boy, he went 
to sea to learn more about the great ocean. He 
did not run away secretly, but he went to the 
captain of a vessel and told him that he would 
work as a sailor for a few years without any pay, 
so that he could learn all about boats. The cap- 
tain looked the young Henry over from head to 
foot, and he thought to himself, "Here is a fine, 
strong lad. He will make a good sailor." So 
he said to Henry, "You stay with me until you 
are twenty-one, and I will teach you everything 
about a ship and make a good sailor out of 



you 



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So Henry Hudson stayed with the captain, 
and every day he learned more about the ways 
of the sea and how to handle a boat. He 
studied in books, too, and soon knew all about 
the seas of the world, and all the countries that 
any white man had ever visited. He was now a 
captain of a ship himself, and everybody was 
glad to sail on his boat, because they knew that 
Henry Hudson was a brave sailor, and was not 
afraid even in the roughest sea. 

In those days there were great companies who 
sent out ships to all parts of the world to trade 
with the different nations. In England there 



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was a company of this kind, called the Muscovy 
Company. Now, this company heard about the 
wise captain, Henry Hudson, and they wanted 
him to sail a ship for them and find out new 
countries, and sell English goods to the strange 
people he met in the new lands; so Hudson 
made several voyages for them. He sailed far 
north, and every day the weather got colder and 
colder; for, as everybody knows, if you go 
south it gets warmer, and if you go north it 
gets colder. Well, after a while it got so cold 
that the sailors almost froze. The ropes of the 
ships and even the sails were covered with ice, 
and in the sea the sailors saw great floating 
mountains of frozen snow. Now, these moun- 
tains are called icebergs, and they are very 
beautiful, especially when the sun shines upon 
them, and the white snow glistens, and the clear 
ice turns a wonderful shade of green. 

But the icebergs, although very beautiful, are 
also very dangerous. They float around in the 
sea, and if they strike a ship, then that ship is 
broken to pieces the way a nut is crushed in a 
nut-cracker. So every day the voyage in the 
north became more dangerous, and some of 
Hudson's men wanted to go home; but their 



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captain would not return. "I will not go back," 
he said, "until I have done what I was sent to 
do," and he kept on his voyage. So when 
Henry Hudson reached England, he had sailed 
further north than any man had sailed in all the 
world up to that time. 

Now, when the people of Europe heard of 
how Hudson had sailed further north than any- 
body in all the world, they all wanted him to 
sail their ships. Holland, at this time, was a 
country of sailors, and here, too, was a company 
like the Muscovy Company, only it was called 
.i^^ the Dutch East India Company. Well, the men 
who owned this company were always looking 
for brave captains; so, when they heard of 
Henry Hudson, they sent for him and said, "We 
are all Dutchmen and you are an Englishman; 
but, as you are a brave and a wise sailor, we 
want you to sail our ships for us." And they 
gave him money, and sent him off in a ship 
called the Half Moon, with twenty sailors, some 
of them Englishmen and some Dutchmen; and 
thus it was that the bold Englishman, Henry 
Hudson, sailed for the Dutch. 

Again Hudson sailed towards the north, but 
this time it was colder even than before, and the 



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sea was so full of ice that his sailors grew afraid, 
even more afraid than his first sailors had been. 
You see the ice was really very, very dangerous. 
If a boat got shut in the ice, you could not 
move it, no matter how hard you tried; and if 
it got caught between two great icebergs, it was 
squeezed until its masts and sides were broken 
to pieces. So I am not surprised that the sailors 
grew frightened, for I should have been fright- 
ened if I were there, and I think you would have 
been frightened too. And they were frightened. 
They said they would throw Hudson overboard 
unless he steered south; so Hudson had to tell 
the pilot to turn the boat, and he sailed south 
along the coast of America. 

Now, I have told you before how in those days 
all sailors believed in a short cut between the 
Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean; so it is 
not strange that Hudson believed in this short 
cut, too, and wanted to find it. Besides, Captain 
Smith, who was a friend of Hudson, had told 
him that there was such a short cut. The name 
that was given to this short cut was the North- 
west Passage, although nobody had ever seen it, 
and, in truth, there wasn't any to see. Well, as 
Hudson was sailing along the coast, he came to 



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" Henry Hudson got many furs from the- Indians and madr them all his friends." 



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a great stream, which he thought must be the 
great Northwest Passage that all brave sailors 
were in search of; so he turned his boat and 
sailed up the river, which was really the Hudson 
River, the river that flows through the State of 
New York, and does not go anywhere near the 
Pacific Ocean. The water was clear and fresh, 
and the longer Hudson sailed, the shallower it 
became, until, after he had gone about a hundred 
miles, his boat could go no further, so he had to 
turn around once more and sail back. His 
men landed on the beautiful green banks of the 
river and rested from their hard journey. 

So it was that the Hudson River was found by 
Henry Hudson, and the great city of New York 
was founded by Dutchmen. You see, though 
Henry Hudson was born in England, he sailed 
for the Dutch, and that gave the Dutch the right 
to all the land he found. Well, they liked this 
river, these home-loving Dutchmen, and they 
liked, too, its beautiful harbor, so they sent out 
from Holland ships with people to build houses 
and forts and trading stores for the Indians. Here 
they also gave the Indians hatchets and knives 
and little glass beads of many colors, and got 
from the red men soft, beautiful furs; and 



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soon there was a little village here, which the 
Dutch called New Amsterdam, after their own 
city of Amsterdam in Holland. For over fifty 
years they held this little city, and then the Eng- 
lish came and took it from them, and called it 
New York. And this is its name to-day, the 
name of the greatest city in all America, the city 
built upon the land which Henry Hudson found. 

Let us return to Henry Hudson. He soon 
saw that this beautiful stream was nothing but a 
river, and not a short cut to the Pacific at all. 
He was sorry, of course; but anyway, he did a 
great deal. He got many furs from the Indians 
and made them all his friends. You see the 
Indians liked Hudson because he was good to 
them. He did not treat them cruelly as the 
Spaniards had done, and he did not try to rob 
them, or murder them, or make slaves of them; 
and the Indians never forgot this kindness, and 
from that time on they were friendly to all the 
Dutch who came to that part of the country. 

At first the Indians did not know what to say 
or do to Hudson and the white men. Like the 
other Indians of our stories, they had never seen 
a ship or a white man before. Some of them 
thought that the ship was a great fish or an 



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animal, and still others believed that it was a 
strange, new house that floated on the water. 
As for Hudson, they thought he was the Mani- 
tou, or Great Spirit, who was the god of the 
Indians, and they worshipped him in a very 
queer way. Gathering in a great circle, they 
danced around him all their queer Indian dances, 
because, being a great spirit, they thought that 
their dancing would please him. 

Then Henry Hudson gave the Indians axes 
and shoes and stockings, but the red men did 
not know what to do with the gifts. They 
thought the heads of the axes and the shoes 
must be ornaments to be worn about the neck, 
and the stockings they used to put tobacco in 
and they hung them at their belts. Now, I think 
that shoes and stockings were very foolish gifts 
to make to the Indians, because everybody knows 
that they always wear mocassins; but the axes 
were a very sensible present. The Indians were 
pleased with these axes. They cut down trees 
and chopped wood for their fires, much more 
easily than before, when they had used their big 
hunting knives. 

Well, the Indians certainly did like Hudson 
and Hudson liked the Indians; so one day the 




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chief invited him in to dinner. It would not 
have been polite to refuse this invitation. You 
see, Hudson could not say that he had a "pre- 
vious engagement," which is the way some 
people have of making excuses when they do 
not want to go anywhere. Anyway, Hudson 
really wanted to go. When he came to the wig- 
wam, he found the chief seated on a mat on the 
ground. Hudson looked around for a chair; but, 
as there was none, he sat down on a mat too, 
and waited for what would come next. Then 
the food was served. It was in two big wooden 
bowls and of only one kind — a sort of stew, 
made up of pigeons and dog cooked together. 
Now, a dog isn't a very good thing to eat, at 
least we don't think it is; but the Indians thought 
this a very fine feast. Well, Hudson was polite, 
and he had such a good time at the dinner that 
the Indians were sorry when he sailed away. 

I think that Henry Hudson wanted to come 
back again to the friendly Indians; but when he 
reached Europe, the English kept his vessel and 
made him stay in England. Hudson wanted to 
sail again for the Dutch, but his own people said, 
"No; you must sail for us. You must not 
find new lands for any country but England." 




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THE ENGLISHMAN WHO SAILED FOR THE DUTCH 










So the next year the brave Hudson sailed once 
more, and this time he sailed on an English 
ship. He took with him his own son, a young 
lad, and a man named Henry Green, and also a 
good many sailors. You will hear of this Henry 
Green again before this story is ended. 

Far north Hudson steered the little vessel, 
and soon he came to a great bay which no white 
man had ever seen before, and which was after- 
wards called Hudson's Bay, because Hudson 
found it. Here it was very cold indeed, and 
every day it grew colder. The ice froze around 
the vessel, and for eight months the little ship 
could not move an inch. Food got scarce, and 
then, as always happens, the men were afraid of 
starving and longed to get home. As soon as the 
ice began to melt even a little, they begged Hud- 
son to go back to England. ** Do not stay in this 
cold land," they said, "where we shall surely 
freeze and starve to death." But Hudson would 
not do this. He believed that at last he was 
in the Northwest Passage, and would soon find 
the Pacific Ocean. "Be brave," he said, "for 
this ship shall not return to England until I find 
out about this bay." Perhaps these words of 
Hudson would have kept the men quiet if it had 




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not been for the wicked Henry Green. Hudson 
had always been friendly to Green, but this 
wicked man was not grateful. Night and day 
he talked to the men until he got them to turn 
against their good captain. And they c/id turn 
against him in this way. 

Hand and foot both Henry Hudson and his 
son were tied so tight that they could not get 
loose, and then, with seven sick men, they were 
put in a little boat and turned adrift in the great 
sea, while the wicked Henry Green and the other 
men sailed home to England. When they reached 
home, I am glad to say, these wicked men were 
all punished. They were put in prison, and a 
ship was sent to Hudson Bay to look for the 
brave Henry Hudson; but he was not found, 
and to this day no one knows what became of 
the little boat and of good Captain Hudson. 

So I suppose that, left alone without food, he 
died there in the great, frozen sea. But who 
knows? There were many simple Dutch people 
who lived near New York, in the Catskill Moun- 
tains, who never believed that Hudson was dead. 
Whenever it thundered in the hills, these old 
men used to say, "Henry Hudson and his men 
are playing ninepins in the mountains." 





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THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE 



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The FATHER of NEW FRANCE 

ABOUT three hundred years ago, there lived 
. in France a man who wanted to find a new 
country. He loved France, its green fields and 
its cool forests, its rivers and quiet country roads, 
its cottages and its beautiful palaces; but what 
this man wanted was a New France, a country 
where Frenchmen could go and speak their own 
language and meet other Frenchmen. 

This man's name was Samuel Champlain. 
Even as a little boy, when he played with other 
lads in the fields, he had this one plan — to find a 
new country for France. He knew that he could 
find this country in America, because America 
was so big; so he asked everybody he met to 
tell him what they knew about the great wild 
country beyond the sea. 

He asked questions about the lakes of 
America, its rivers, its great forests and its wide 
plains. He asked questions about its gold and 
silver, its mines and fisheries, and the vegetables 
and fruits, and everything that grew there. 

Now, in the little town in which Champlain 
grew up, there lived some fishermen who had 




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been to America. They had not been in the 
southern lands, like Mexico, Florida and Peru, 
where the Spaniards had gone for gold. The 
Spaniards did not like the French, and they 
would not let a Frenchman live in the countries 
that belonged to them; so these bold fishermen 
of France sailed further north. They used to 
start in the first warm days of spring, in their 
little fishing boats, and sail all the way across 
the ocean to America. Here, in the quiet, silent 
waters, off the coasts of Maine and Newfound- 
land, they would fish all summer, and when the 
weather got cold, they would sail back with their 
fish to their little homes in France. 

They were very brave men, I can tell you, 
these French fishermen. Sometime one of them 
would get caught in a storm, and his little 
boat would go down to the bottom of the cold 
sea. Then a poor woman in France would sit 
by the window waiting for her husband to return 
— waiting, waiting, waiting. And sometimes 
these fishermen would land on the shore in 
-._.^r America, or sail their boats up the rivers. They 
I told Champlain of the wonderful sights they had 
seen; of the wide rivers rushing down from the 
north; of the deep quiet of the beautiful forests; 




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of the tall spruce and pine trees; of the clean, 
cold waters of the little lakes. They told how 
the naked Indians went about in light canoes, 
made of the bark of trees; how these Indians 
would carry their canoes on their backs from 
river to river and from lake to lake. They told 
Champlain of the beautiful brown and white 
furs that the Indians had — furs so soft and warm 
that any lady in France, even the Queen herself, 
would be happy to wear them. 

When Champlain had heard all these stories, 
he became more eager than ever to make a new 
France in America. This cold country of the 
lakes and forests did not have gold and silver 
mines; but, after all, thought Champlain, "gold 
and silver are not the only things in the world." 
The Frenchmen who would live in this New 
France could get fish from the rivers, beautiful 
woods from the forests, and soft, warm furs from 
the Indians. Champlain dreamed of the time 
when all this country would be filled with 
Frenchmen, living in beautiful new cities, and 
loving and obeying the King of France. 

Now, Champlain was just the man to find a 
new country. He was very wise, and very, very 
brave. Of all the men who went to America, 



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Spaniards and Frenchmen, Dutchmen and Eng- 
lishmen, I do not think there was anyone braver 
than Champlain. When he was still very young, 
he had sailed in the French ships and had learned 
to be' a good sailor and a plucky soldier. He 
had fought in many battles for his King, and no 
one could ever say that Samuel Champlain was 
a coward. 

Then later, after he had left the army, Cham- 
plain went to the West Indies and to Mexico. 
Here he saw the lands that Columbus had found, 
the lands that Cortez had conquered, and he 
watched all that the Spaniards were doing in 
these soft, warm lands to the south. 

But as I told you, the bold Champlain wished 
to find his new country, not in the warm lands 
to the south, but in the cold countries to the 
north. So, after a while, he joined a little band 
of Frenchmen who were going to the great 
country which is now called Canada. Now, these 
Frenchmen with vvhom Champlain went were 
good, kind men. They did not kill the Indians 
nor rob them, as, I am sorry to say, so many 
other white men did, but they loved the Indians. 
There was one man among them who was very, 
very kind. His name was Poutrincourt. He 






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had been a great lord in his own country, but 
he did not want to go back to his beautiful 
France. He lived peacefully and happily with 
the Indians, taught them new ways of farming 
and many other things of which they had never 
heard before. And the Indians loved the French 
lord as they did their own father. Even the little 
Indian children used to come in and out of his 
house whenever they liked, and lie on the ground 
while he ate his dinner; and every now and then 
he threw them raisins and nuts, which they 
caught in their little brown hands. 

Now, this life was very beautiful; but Cham- 
plain was not happy. He wanted this great 
country of America to belong to France, and 
he wanted to learn all about its rivers and lakes 
and forests, so that the other people who would 
come later would know the way to go and the 
best places to live in. Across great forests he 
went, looking at rivers and islands and lakes, till 
at last he reached the mighty St. Lawrence River, 
where another Frenchman had been a hundred 
years before. Here Champlain stayed for several 
months, and then he returned to France.' 

But the next year, which was 1608, Cham- 
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River. He began now to build a little city 
called Quebec, which was to be the great city of 
the new country; but even before his workmen 
were through putting up the first houses, there 
was trouble for good Champlain. Among the 
men whom he had brought with him from 
France, was a very wicked fellow named Duval. 
I do not know why Champlain let him come 
along, but I suppose that at first he did not know 
how wicked Duval really was. You see, many of 
the soldiers who first went to America were very 
cruel and very wicked. Anyway, this Duval 
made a plan with three other men to go to 
Champlain's bed while he slept. Then all the 
four men were to take Champlain's neck in their 
hands and squeeze it till he could not breathe, and 
so strangle him to death. It would have gone 
hard with Champlain if one of the men had not 
told him of this wicked plot. When Champlain 
heard it, he arrested the four men. He then had 
the wicked Duval hanged, and the other three 
men he sent back to France to be punished. 

But this was not the last of Champlain's 
troubles. A great sickness called scurvy broke 
out among the men who were with him. Of 
the twenty-eight men, twenty died, and only eight 



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" Champlain came back to the St. Lawrence Ri\-er and began to build a little 

city called Quebec." 







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were left to bury the dead. Even these eight men 
were sick, and every day they came to Champlain 
and begged him to take them back to France. 
" Do you not remember," they said; "do you not 
remember how warm and sunny and beautiful it 
is at home; how the blue grapes hang in heavy 
bunches on the green vines; how the lovely 
women smile with joy, and the little children 
play about our knees and beg us for stories? 
Let us go back to our beautiful France and to 
our wives and children." But Champlain told 
them to be brave and patient; so they waited, 
and in the spring their courage was rewarded. 
More ships came with brave Frenchmen, and 
these ships were loaded down with food; so all 
the men with Champlain were again happy. 

Champlain had learned that it was best to be 
kind to the Indians, and so it happened that all 
the Indians near Quebec were his friends. Now, 
one day Champlain heard of a great lake to the 
south, and he wanted to go there to find out all 
about it. So he asked the friendly Indians to 
take him; but they shook their heads. "We 
cannot go there in peace," they said, "because 
of the Five Nations." "Who are these Five 
Nations?" asked Champlain. Then the friendly 




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Indians answered him quickly: "They are our 
enemies, these Five Nations. They are Indian 
tribes who kill us when they can, and whom we 
kill when we can. We are always at war. " But," 
they told Champlain, "though we cannot go to 
the great lake in peace, we are going there in 
war. We are going to fight the Five Nations. 
Come with us, you and your men and your guns, 
and fight with us against these peoples." 

So Champlain and two of his men went with 
the friendly Indians to fight the Five Nations. 
There were sixty Indians in all, and they trav- 
eled in light canoes, going down the rivers that 
emptied into the Great Lake. The Indians in 
front always held their bows in their hands, ready 
to shoot if they should see any of the warriors 
of the Five Nations, and those in the back canoes 
were always looking around for animals, so that 
they could shoot them and cook them, so that the 
little army would have enough food. Every night 
they sent a few canoes ahead to watch out for 
the enemy. 

At last, one evening, as Champlain and his men 
were canoeing down the lake, they met the Indians 
of the Five Nations. There were two hundred 
Indians in this army; but the sixty friendly 



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Indians were not afraid, because they had Cham- 
plain with them. "When the Five Nations seethe 
guns of the Frenchmen," said the chiefs among 
themselves, "and hear them speak noise and fire 
and death, they will be so afraid that they will 
run away and we will win the battle." 

It was too late to fight that night, so both 
little armies waited until the sun rose on the lake 
the next morning. During all the long hours 
they stayed near each other, and in the darkness 
they each called the others cowards. They made 
a great noise, I can tell you. 

Well, the fight began the next morning, and 
then the army of the Five Nations had a great 
surprise. The first thing they saw was a white 
man in gleaming armor, who held a gun in his 
hands, and had a gleaming sword in his belt. 
The Indians shot their arrows at this white man, 
but the arrows did not do any more harm than 
if they had been shot at a rock. Then Cham- 
plain aimed his gun and shot bullets, and two 
of the chiefs of the Five Nations fell down dead. 
Two other Frenchmen shot bullets and more 
chiefs fell dead. Now, the Five Nations had 
never seen men killed in this way before. They 
could not see the bullets that went so fast through 



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the air, and they thought that the white men had 
killed their chiefs with a noise; so the army of 
the Five Nations grew very much afraid. One 
of the Indians began to run, then another, then 
another, and soon their whole army was running 
away. The Indians who were with Champlain 
ran after them, shooting them with their arrows, 
killing and catching very many. I think that 
both sides were very cruel, and it seems to me 
sometimes that Champlain, though he was a brave 
man and a very wise man, would have done bet- 
ter if he had kept out of all their quarrels; for, 
from that day, the Five Nations were always the 
enemies of the French, and would never let the 
French go to the south, where they wanted to go. 
After this, came busy years for the brave 
Samuel Champlain. He had found his new 
country for France, and every year he traveled 
over it and learned more about it. He traded 
with the Indians for their beautiful furs and 
sent them to France, where the fine ladies of the 
Court wore them in the winter. Champlain sent 
a young Frenchman to study the Indian lan- 
guages, so that Champlain could talk to them 
in their own way, and he sent an Indian to 
France to learn to speak French. 







136 



THE FATHER 



OF NEW 



FRANCE 



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But Champlain was too brave to stay always 
in Quebec, and so every now and then he would 
go on a great trip. Once he went north to find 
a great salt sea that a Frenchman had told him 
about. It was one of the hardest and most dan- 
gerous trips that a man ever took. There were 
great swamps, where Champlain sank to his 
waist; and deep forests, where the bushes and 
brushwood were so thick and dense that he had 
to cut his way with a great knife before taking 
a step. And all these hardships were useless, 
for there really wasn't any great salt sea; so, of 
course, they never found it. 

Then Champlain went on a second long 
journey to the west. He traveled with the 
friendly Indians for many weeks, till at last they 
came upon the town of the Five Nations. You 
would have been surprised to see that town. It 
was not like other cities, with streets, and stores, 
and brick houses, and electric cars. It was just 
a few plain, long, one-story houses, as big as 
theatres. In these houses were a lot of little 
rooms, and in each room a family of Indians. 
Around the town were four rows of stakes, like 
telegraph poles, and the Indians stood behind 
these poles when they shot their arrows. 






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THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA 







This time the Indians who were with Cham- 
plain were beaten in the fight, because they would 
not do as the Frenchman told them. Even Cham- 
plain himself was shot twice in the leg, and the 
Indians had to carry him away in a basket that 
they fastened to their backs. You see, they were 
friends of Champlain, and they did not want 
him to be caught and killed by the Indians of 
the Five Nations. 

That was a hard winter for Champlain. The 
Indians who were friendly to him wanted him to 
stay with them, and when he asked for a guide 
to show him the way back to his home in Quebec, 
they would not let him go. You see, Champlain 
did not know this country as well as the Indians 
did, and he was afraid of getting lost in the forest; 
but the Indians treated him well, and when the 
spring came around again they took him home 
to his city of Quebec. 

After this, Champlain worked day and night 
to build up his new country. He tried very 
hard to make it pleasant for the people who lived ' 
in Quebec, and always tried to get more French- 
men to come from France and live in the new 
country. Every year he took the long journey 
across the ocean and told everybody there of the 







t !i',« 



138 




THE FATHER 



FRANCE 









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wonderful land of America. Of all the things 
in the world, what Champlain most wanted was 
to make this new France even greater and more 
beautiful than the old France. 

I think that if Champlain had not been a very 
patient man, he would have many a time given up 
Quebec and gone back to France to lead a peace- 
ful, quiet life. Often things went very bad indeed. 
New people did not cross the ocean as fast as 
Champlain wanted them to, and those who did 
come grumbled and quarreled. Often, too, the 
food gave out and the people got sick and many 
starved. But Champlain, though he was now a 
pretty old man, would never give up. Once 
some English warships sailed into the harbor 
and asked Champlain to give up the city to them. 
The brave Frenchman had hardly any soldiers; 
but he said, "No; I will never give up my city 
of New France. As long as I have a man or a 
bullet left, I will never give up the city of 
Quebec." And after a while, the English cap- 
tain became frightened because he thought ji 
that Champlain might have a big army, and so 
he sailed away; but the next year three more 
English vessels sailed up the harbor, and as this 
time Champlain had only sixteen half-starved 



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men, he had to surrender. But England did not 
long keep the city. It was handed back to 
France, and Champlain was again sent out to 
Quebec as commander over the little town. 

So Samuel Champlain, the boy who had 
dreamed of New France, now went back once 
more to that country; but his days were almost 
over. He became very ill, and, after lying in 
bed for more than two months, he died an old 
man, at the age of sixty-eight years. 

Many, many years later, there was a great war 
between France and England, and after the war 
was over the whole country of New France was 
given to England. The English changed the 
name of the country to Canada; but even now 
there are more than a million people living there 
who speak French, and who are the children of 
the children of the children for many genera- 
tions, of the men who lived with Champlain. 
And even now, after three hundred years, these 
Frenchmen, and other people in Canada, and 
people all over the world for that matter, revere 
the name of the great and good Champlain, and 
call him, as they used to call him so long ago, 
"The Father of New France." 





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140 



THE 



FRIENDS 



OF THE 



INDIANS 




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THE FRIENDS .///;. INDIANS 

MANY, many years ago, two Frenchmen, 
traveling through a new, wild forest coun- 
try, came upon a cross that was all covered with 
flowers. There were no white men in all this 
country, and so the Frenchmen wondered who 
had put the cross there, and who had placed the 
flowers on it; but later they learned that the 
Indians in this part of the country had laid the 
flowers on the cross. Then the Frenchmen knew 
that these Indians were friends, because every- 
where the French went they carried the cross, 
and taught the Indians, who loved them, to place 
flowers on it. 

Now, these two Frenchmen were very good 
men. They treated the Indians kindly, and the 
Indians, who liked to be treated kindly, were also 
good to the Frenchmen. There is a very good 
lesson in all this. If you want people to be good 
to you, then you must always be kind to them. 

Now, all the Frenchmen who came to America 
knew this, and from the first they were kind to 
the Indians. The Spaniards had been very harsh. 
They had killed the red men or made slaves of 



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them, and sometimes the Indians had been cruelly 
beaten until they died. They had been tortured, 
too; hung up by their fingers and toes; roasted 
over a hot fire; starved, and even chased with 
great, fierce blood-hounds. So I am not sur- 
prised that the Indians did not love the Spaniards. 

Now, the English and Dutch who came to 
America were not quite so cruel as the Spaniards, 
but sometimes they, too, treated the Indians 
harshly. For a very little wrong they would 
shoot an Indian or burn down a whole Indian 
village. Besides, they were very proud, and 
thought that the red men were only savages, and 
they did not want to have anything to do with 
them; and this, I may tell you, is a very bad 
way to act and think, if you want people to like 
you and help you. 

The Frenchmen who came to America acted 
much more wisely. They really loved the 
Indians, and often lived with them in their poor 
little villages. Some of the Frenchmen had been 
great lords in their own country. They had had 
beautiful castles, with fine, big rooms, and gold 
and silver and wonderful carpets. They had had 
many servants to wait on them, and everything 
in the world that they wanted. Yet these very 




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THE FRIENDS OF THE 



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men were not too proud to sleep on the ground 
in the hut of an Indian, or share with him a 
meal of corn and dried meat. They hunted with 
the Indians; they fished with them, they smoked 
their pipes with them, and Indians and French- 
men sat around the roaring camp-fire and talked 
together, or looked up in silence at the bright 
little stars. Wherever the Frenchmen went, they 
put up little chapels, and here Frenchmen and 
Indians kneeled down side by side and prayed 
to the good God. The French priest would bap- 
tize the little red children, and when they grew 
old enough to understand, he would teach them 
about God and the Bible. 

Some of the Indians became Christians, and 
hung flowers on the little crosses which the 
Frenchmen built all over the country. And so 
it was that when our two Frenchmen saw the 
flowers on the cross, they rejoiced and were glad, 
because they knew that even in this wild coun- 
try, far away from all white men, they were with 
friends. 

Now, these men were not only very good, but 
they were also very brave. One of them was 
named Louis Joliet. He had been sent by the 
King of France to find out some good way to 




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143 



THE 



MEN 



WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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the Pacific Ocean. The other was Father Mar- 
quette, a French priest, as brave a man as any 
soldier. This Father Marquette had Hved with 
the Indians many, many years. He knew their 
languages and all their customs, and the Indians 
loved him and called him their friend. 

Well, it was not an easy thing that these brave 
Frenchmen were trying to do. No white man 
had ever been in all this country before. It was 
much pleasanter staying in Quebec, the city 
which good Champlain, the Father of New 
France, had founded; but Joliet and good 
Father Marquette were not afraid of danger. 
They sailed down the St. Lawrence River into 
the Great Lakes, and then on and on and on, 
day after day, and day after day, until at last they 
reached Lake Michigan. I think this part of 
their journey must have been the most pleasant. 
The weather was warm, the Indians they met 
were friendly, and now and then they would 
come across some Frenchman who was living 
out in the wild country, trapping animals for 
their furs or trading with the Indians; and 
sometimes they would meet a good French priest, 
who had come this great way to teach the Indians 
about God, 



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"The Indian.. loNrd ilir brave Father Alaniuette, and called him their friend. 







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THE FRIENDS 



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THE 



INDIANS 



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Well, at last they left the last Frenchman and 
the last wooden cross, and started down a narrow 
but beautiful river that they believed flowed into 
the Mississippi. The little river was so choked 
with rice that grew wild along its banks that the 
boats found it hard to move. Here their guides 
left them, and then for a week they drifted slowly, 
slowly down the river, till at last, with cries of 
joy, they came to the Mississippi. 

Now, this Mississippi River is the greatest 
river in America, and one of the greatest rivers 
in all the world. It was the same river that De 
Soto had found so many, many years before, 
when the Indians had told him that its name was 
the Father of Waters. Now, you see, whatever 
country owned the Mississippi River, the great 
river that flowed from little streams all the 
way down to where it emptied into the great, 
great sea, that country would own all the land 
along its banks, and so would be the greatest 
country in America. This was why Joliet and 
Father Marquette wanted to sail all the way down 
the river, so that all the land on its banks might 
belong to France. Besides, they thought that 
perhaps it flowed into the Pacific Ocean. You 
see, Joliet and Father Marquette had no good 



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145 



THE 



MEN 



WHO FOUND AMERICA 



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maps, and they did not know, as you and I know, 
that the Mississippi River flowed not west into 
the Pacific Ocean, but south into the Gulf of 
Mexico. 

When the two brave Frenchmen reached the 
Mississippi River, they were a little afraid of the 
Indians who lived along its banks. Perhaps 
these Indians would be their enemies and would 
kill them; so they no longer left their canoes 
at night and slept on the banks about a roaring 
camp-fire. They feared that the sharp eyes of 
unfriendly Indians might see the smoke, and that 
they might come and cut off their scalps while 
they slept ; so they tied their canoes to the shore 
and they rolled themselves up in blankets, so as 
to be ready to wake in a minute and paddle away. 
They also made one of their men stay awake all 
night to watch for the red men; but for eight 
days there was not an Indian in sight. 

On the ninth day they saw a path leading up 
from the river, and they knew that this path must 
go to an Indian village. Joliet and Father Mar- 
quette did not know whether these Indians were 
friendly or not ; but they were both brave men. 
Maybe their hearts beat a little faster, as they 
thought that, perhaps, the Indians would kill 



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THE FRIENDS 



OF THE INDIANS 

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them; but, anyway, they did not show any fear 
as they walked up the path to the village. Well, 
after all, the Indians were friendly. The chief 
came forward with hands raised above his head, 
which was always a sign of friendship with the 
Indians. Then other red men waved the long 
pipe of peace, which was the same as though 
they had said, "Let us be friends, oh, white 
men!" The two Frenchmen were invited to take 
dinner, and the chief told them stories about the 
Great River and about the other Indians that 
lived along its banks. And at last, when Joliet 
and Father Marquette said good-by, all the 
Indians went with them as far as the river, and 
the Indian chief gave them a present, which 
was better than gold, or silver, or diamonds, or 
rubies. 

Now, I suppose you will want to know what 
was this present that was better than gold, or 
silver, or diamonds, or rubies. Well, I will tell 
you; it was a pipe. Not a stale old pipe, such 
as a man carries in his pocket, but the calumet, 
the pipe of peace. Wherever Joliet and Father 
Marquette went, all they had to do was to show 
this calumet, or pipe of peace, and every Indian 
knew that the great chief was the good friend 



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MEN 




WHO 



FOUND A Tvl E R I C A 



of these white men; and many times this pipe 
saved the Hves of the two brave Frenchmen. 

Well, wherever they went, Joliet and Father 
Marquette showed the calumet of the great 
Indian chief, and then the other Indians were 
friendly too. And these two Frenchmen were so 
good and brave that the Indians liked them for 
their own sakes; so down the river they sailed, 
past big forests and beautiful, rolling prairies, 
until one day they saw a wide, yellow river that 
flowed into the Mississippi. This was the Mis- 
souri, a great, yellow, roaring river, and if they 
had time, I think the two Frenchmen would have 
sailed up it; but they could not stop. So day 
after day they sailed on down, down, down the 
Mississippi. I think that they must have had a 
good time of it, seeing a new country all the 
while; but they did not go the whole way. 
When they had gone many hundreds of miles, 
they were told stories of some very cruel Indians 
who lived in the south. The friendly Indians 
said to them, "If you fall into the hands of these 
bad Indians, they will surely tie you to a pole 
and burn you alive; and if you escape, perhaps 
the Spaniards will catch you, and they are as 
wicked as the others." 




<3< 




148 




THE FRIENDS 



O F 



THE INDIANS 




:^.':.. 






5ftW^^ 



So Joliet and Father Marquette talked it over 
for a long time, and at last they thought it would 
be wiser to go back. Slowly they sailed up the 
Mississippi River, and then across the country to 
the Great Lakes, and back the same way they had 
come. On the way home they saw graceful, 
white swans, with long, beautiful necks, swim- 
ming on the little silver lakes, and in the dark, 
green forests were cattle, and goats, and beautiful 
brown deer, with wonderful spreading horns. 
At last they reached Quebec, and all the people 
in the town wanted to hear of the great adven- 
tures and lucky escapes of Joliet and Father 
Marquette. 

Now, there was a brave man named La Salle, 
who heard these stories from the mouth of Joliet. 
This La Salle was a very great man in France. 
His family were nobles and were very rich, and 
young La Salle, whose first name was Robert, 
had been well brought up, and had been taught 
many things. He was so good that he even 
became a priest, and everybody said that Robert 
La Salle was a very good and a very wise man. 

But Robert La Salle wanted to go to America, 
not only to find new lands, but also to find what 
so many others had tried to find, a new way to 



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149 



THE 



M E N 



WHO FOUND AMERIC 



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the Pacific Ocean. So he gave up being a priest 
and went to the great, new country of America. 

La Salle was not only a wise man, but one 
who thought a great deal, and now he thought 
of a new plan. This plan was to build little 
French forts, very little but very strong, all the 
way along the Great Lakes and the Mississippi 
River; and at the mouth of the Mississippi he 
planned a great, great fort. He wanted to put 
French soldiers in these forts, so that the whole 
river and all the country around would belong 
to France. When this was done. Frenchmen 
could go everywhere to get furs, and soon little 
cities could be built, and there would be a great, 
strong. New France in America. So the dream 
of Champlain would come true. 

Now, the first thing La Salle had to do was 
to sail down the great Mississippi and find the 
best places for his little forts and trading posts; 
and this was not an easy thing to do. In those 
days it was a long and hard journey from Quebec 
to the mouth of the Great River, and La Salle 
tried many times before he succeeded. On the 
first trip his ship was wrecked in a great storm 
and nearly everything was lost. Then he had no 
food, and had to sail back miles and miles and 



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miles to get bread and meat. Later, his money 
gave out, and he had to wait until he had sold 
enough furs to buy a new ship. And then, when 
his men tried to sail on the lakes, the wind blew 
against them, and many times they had to sleep 
on the icy ground, with nothing but the sky over 
them. Often and often they had no food at all 
but a few handfuls of corn. 

But the worst trouble that La Salle had was 
with his men. They did not want to do much 
work, and they were always complaining because 
the journey was so hard and because they had 
nothing to eat. Now, they knew very well before 
they started that it would not be easy, and so I, 
for one, think that they ought not to have com- 
plained; but so it is with people. Some, like 
La Salle's men, will grumble and grumble over 
every little thing, while others will bear all sorts 
of hardship and never say a word. 

Now, there were with La Salle two men who 
never complained. One was his faithful French 
friend, Tonti, and another faithful friend was an I 
Indian. These two men, one a Frenchman and 
one an Indian, loved La Salle and did whatever 
he asked. The Indian knew the forest. He 
could find his way through the great, thick trees 



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even in the dark; so La Salle took him as his 
guide. When everybody else was tired and 
cross, this good Indian was as brave and as 
patient as ever. This was because he loved La 
Salle, and because La Salle was always kind to 
all Indians. 

Well, all the time the troubles of La Salle 
grew worse and worse. Sometimes the little 
streams were filled with ice, so that the canoes 
had to be moved on sledges, and sometimes 
these brave men had to wade for miles in water 
up to their waists. Of course, the brambles and 
thorns tore their clothing to rags, and when it 
grew cold, their clothes froze as hard as ice. 
Then they had to stop and build a fire before 
they could go any further. 

I am sure these were times when even the 
brave heart of La Salle almost broke, but not 
once did he give up. Again and again he tried, 
day after day, till at last, after years of disap- 
pointment. La Salle reached the mouth of the 
Mississippi River. His patience and persever- 
ance were finally rewarded. It was in February, 
over two hundred years ago, that the Father of 
Waters and all the country nearby was given by 
La Salle to the King of France. 






IIU 



152 



You can imagine the joy of La Salle when at 
last he reached the end of his long journey. He 
put up a cross on the banks of the river. Then 
^^ he asked all his men to kneel down and pray. 



1^ Then it was that he named the new country 
Louisiana, in honor of King Louis, and, in a 
loud voice, called out that from that time on all 
the land should belong to France. 

And for many years the great country of the 

Mississippi t^iai belong to France. But later, 

much later, when the grandchildren of the men 

?; who had been with La Salle were all dead, a new 

country grew up in America — our country, the 

United States. And to us the French sold all 

; this great country of the Mississippi. Yet the 

ii name of Louisiana is still the name of one of 

J our States, and even to-day all Americans think 

of La Salle as a great and good man who did 

well for his country. 

For all his good deeds La Salle was not 
rewarded as he should have been. Two years 
after he had found the mouth of the Mississippi 
River, he came back again with four ships and 
two hundred and eighty men. This time he 
wanted to build the city and fort that he had 
planned so many years before; but the captain 



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153 



THE 



MEN 



WHO 



FOUND 



A M E R I C 




of these vessels was a very stupid and a very- 
jealous man. He took La Salle to the wrong 
place instead of to the mouth of the Mississippi, 
and when La Salle wanted him to sail again and 
try once more to find the mouth of the river, 
this evil man would not do so; so La Salle 
started by land. Now he had no map, and it 
was much further than he thought. Then, too, 
there were many hardships, and his men grumbled 
and grumbled, and would not do as he said. 
And at last two of the men, who were very 
wicked, hid behind trees, and when La Salle was 
walking to the camp, they shot him dead. 

And that was the end of Robert La Salle, the 
man who found the mouth of the Mississippi, 
and who was one of the true, good and great 
friends of the Indians. 



UllAUMt 





154 




WHAT 



CAME 



O F 



I T 



L L 



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■§^ 



WHAT CAME OF IT ALL 



AND now my stories are ended. What won- 
. derful stories they are! How strange and 
how true! 

As I finished my last story, I closed my eyes, 
and it seemed to me that I saw again all those 
brave men who had come from the East to explore 
our America. I saw them all — noble and swine- 
herd, priest and soldier, Spaniard and French- 
man, and Englishman and Dutchman, I saw 
the wise Columbus following the Queen from 
place to place, begging her to let him sail to the 
Indies. And again I saw him, after he had 
found America, when he was an old man, poor, 
sick and forgotten. And so, too, I saw the 
others — the wicked Balboa, the brave Henry 
Hudson, the good Father Marquette, who loved 
the Indians and was loved by them. 

How strangely it all happened! These bold 
men searched for one thing and found another. 
Columbus looked for the Indies and found 
America; De Soto hunted for gold and came 
to the Mississippi River, and Ponce de Leon 
wanted a fountain of youth, so that he might 



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drink the waters and never die, and instead of 
youth and life he found Florida and death. And 
so it was with the others. The unfortunate 
Henry Hudson never thought of the great city 
of New York, which was to grow up on his 
river; he only thought of a short cut to the 
Pacific Ocean. And the wicked Balboa, who 
hid in a barrel, did not think that he would be 
the first man to look upon the great ocean; but 
all he wanted was to get away from the men who 
had lent him money. So strangely did it all 
happen! 

Yes, they were strange men and they led 
strange lives. Up and down they went, some- 
times rich, sometimes poor, but always bold and 
daring, A man who had nothing in all the 
world would stumble upon a great empire and 
become rich and famous in the eyes of all men. 
Think of Cortez, who came out of prison to 
conquer all of Mexico, and who became so rich 
that he did not know what to do with his money, 
though at last he died poor and unhappy! And 
think of Pizarro, the barefooted, bareheaded 
swineherd, who became one of the greatest and 
richest and wickedest men in all the world! 
How strange Cortez must have seemed to the 





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M 



156 



WHAT 



CAME 



O F 



I T 



ALL 









Aztecs, who had never before seen a white man, 
nor a horse, nor a gun, nor a house that sailed 
on the sea ! And how strange the greedy Pizarro 
must have looked to the Incas, and how 'strange 
and curious the Incas and their wonderful coun- 
try must have seemed to Pizarro! 

Just so strange and wonderful were the things 
that happened to the other explorers. There was 
the nobleman, De \''aca, who became a slave to 
the wild Indians. Then there was bold Captain 
Smith, whose life was saved by the Little Red 
Princess of the Forest; and stranger still, this 
same little girl, who had saved his life in Vir- 
ginia, saw him again in London, and this time 
she was a Christian and an Englishman's wife, 
and the friend of the King and Queen of all 
England. It was all very, very strange. 

I wish that I could really see all these great 
men — the wise Columbus, who sailed new seas 
and found America; the patient Champlain, the 
good Father of New France; the bold La Salle, 
who sailed down the Mississippi River; the faith- 
ful Henry Hudson, the brave De Soto, and all 
the others. Yes, I should like to meet them, to 
shake their hands, to hear from their own lips 
their wonderful stories; but this cannot be. 





THE 



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MEN 



WHO FOUND AMERICA 




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All of these things happened hundreds of years 
ago, long before I was born, and all the men 
and all the women, all the Kings, and Queens, 
and nobles, and sailors, and soldiers, and priests, 
and Indian chiefs — all are dead. 

And now you will ask me what came of it 
all. Well, that is another story, or rather, I 
should say, many stories. Many brave men 
came to America, and many brave men lived 
here, and strange and wonderful things hap- 
pened; but the end of it all was that a new 
country arose in America — the United States, and 
you and I and all other Americans have this good 
land for our country. 

And so we Americans, who live in the coun- 
try that Columbus found, and the others explored 
and conquered, should always remember those 
brave men who risked their lives so many, many 
years ago; and for this reason we, who love 
America, should be grateful to them all, but 
especially to the one who first pointed out the 
way — to the bold sailor who crossed an unknown 
sea, the good, wise Christopher Columbus, the 
man who found America. 




Jn, 



[ THE KND.] 



158 



